A haunted house acts as a physical embodiment of transphobia, racism and fascism in Tell Me I'm Worthless, the brutally dark debut from Alison Rumfitt. Alice is a transgender online sex worker whose life has been spiraling out of control since a night she spent in a haunted house three years ago with her friends Ila and Hannah. Alice and Ila have radically different memories of that night, although both remember a traumatic event taking place. Hannah never came out of the cursed house ("Hannah you are home, Hannah you are home," the house tells her, once she's inside); Ila has since become wildly transphobic; and Alice is struggling with the feeling of a malevolent presence in her house that sometimes takes the form of a racist pop star on a poster she only hung up to cover a mark on the wall. The two agree that in order to have any hope, they have to go back to confront the house and what happened to Hannah.
This is a raw, wrenching work of gothic horror that explores how fascism can metastasize, with a particular focus on its effects on marginalized communities in the United Kingdom. Readers who want to be aware of trigger warnings should definitely investigate before starting the novel: Rumfitt confronts an impressive range of potentially traumatizing subjects in a short work. Those who are up for engaging with the novel will be rewarded for the challenge and be eager to see more from this talented first-time author. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library