Hermit by Chris McQueer

TRIGGER WARNING: violence against women, misogyny, domestic abuse.

Jamie doesn’t like what’s happening in his life, and he blames women. This book terrified me. In fact, I desperately wanted to put it down, but I couldn’t – in that can’t-look-away-from-a-car-crash kind of way. Not that either the writing or the story is a car crash at all – they’re both fantastic and perfectly achieve their purpose: I was totally gripped by the plot and had such conflicting feelings for Jamie, who I both pitied and was completely repulsed by. He is lured into the dark world of incels and targeted for what makes him vulnerable: his feelings of rejection, isolation and shame.

I recently finished watching Adolescence on Netflix, which has similar themes of incels and also has a main character named Jamie. I wanted to learn more to get my head around how boys and men get to this place of absolutely hating women. What’s scary is that the path Jamie and his friend Lee go down in this novel really isn’t that far-fetched. The way they are manipulated is so believable. If you are worried about someone going down this road, or just worried about the theme in general, this book might not make you feel better, but it could give you some insight, and some hope, too.

This is a book for #incels #rejection #isolation #loneliness #understandingmisogyny

Video review here.