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Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
In the future, everyone will be trans. So says Lexi. She's a charismatic trans woman furious with the way she sees her trans friends treated by society and resentful of the girl who spurned her love. Now, Lexi has a plan to wreak her vengeance: a future in which no one can produce hormones and everyone must make the same choice that she made-what body best fits your gender? FOR SIGNED AND NUMBERED VERSION, CHECK WWW.TORREYPETERS.COM
75 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 2016
26 people are currently reading
6287 people want to read
About the author
Torrey Peters
11 books1,841 followersTorrey Peters is the author of the novel Detransition, Baby, published by One World/Random House, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She is also the authors of the novellas Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. Torrey rides a pink motorcycle and splits her time between Brooklyn and an off-grid cabin in Vermont.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 306 reviews
April 26, 2020
Some people are afraid trans people are going to destroy civilization as we know it, and here Torrey Peters brazenly responds, "So what if we did?" What would happen if we released a virus that made everyone stop producing hormones, a world where everyone gets to understand what it means to choose? Infect Your Friends and Loves Ones is the radical and deeply honest trans dystopia that rises from these seeds: a raging novella seething with dysfunction and resilience.
May 16, 2022
the premise of this novella is so creative and fascinating !! the characters were kinda weak imo, but I think as a whole the story is more focused on worldbuilding and the really unique setup. the back and forth time-skips were easy to follow, which i think is impressive for something as short as this. i would love to read more stuff set in this world, i'm so taken by the premise and i love fiction that isn't made for cis people to understand or be comfortable with. if it sounds interesting to you, give it a shot, took me less than an hour to get through!
update as of may 2022 - bumping up to 5 stars. reminds me a lot of Manhunt!
update as of may 2022 - bumping up to 5 stars. reminds me a lot of Manhunt!
May 23, 2025
One of the first texts Torrey Peters (of Detransition, Baby fame) has published, now also part of her collection Stag Dance.
The narrator, a beautiful upper-class trans woman, is infected with a contagious virus that prevents those afflicted from producing male or female hormones - the raging pandemic has led to a war over the access to artificial hormones in the US. The nameless protagonist was patient zero because her friend Lexi, a trans activist with a precarious background, injected her with lab materials against her will, the altercation being prompted by the pair's inability to show solidarity and love due to trauma (again and again, the text refers to actual and metaphorical scars).
So packaged in a dystopian civil war thriller in which everybody is forced to fight for their hormones/gender, the text is a meditation on how the trans community is affected by an outside pressure that has the potential to unravel whole nations if they had to contend with these problems on a larger scale.
This could easily become a whole novel, or a netflix series.
The narrator, a beautiful upper-class trans woman, is infected with a contagious virus that prevents those afflicted from producing male or female hormones - the raging pandemic has led to a war over the access to artificial hormones in the US. The nameless protagonist was patient zero because her friend Lexi, a trans activist with a precarious background, injected her with lab materials against her will, the altercation being prompted by the pair's inability to show solidarity and love due to trauma (again and again, the text refers to actual and metaphorical scars).
So packaged in a dystopian civil war thriller in which everybody is forced to fight for their hormones/gender, the text is a meditation on how the trans community is affected by an outside pressure that has the potential to unravel whole nations if they had to contend with these problems on a larger scale.
This could easily become a whole novel, or a netflix series.
May 10, 2020
What Torrey Peters does with characters and theme in 70 pages is what other writers spend their whole career trying to do. Read this!
July 28, 2023
It makes me sad to rate this book so low, because it doesn't deserve that, but I had no fun reading it.
There were lots of things that were set up to be strong, but I don't even remember how they were resolved because of two things.
The only trans man in the book appears about halfway through and he sucks. He really does. He goes on a date with the narrator and totally ignores everything she's saying to talk about his own oppression. I wouldn't care if there was at least one other trans guy who didn't suck but no. It's just him. He's the only one and he sucks.
Testosterone is also vilified constantly in this book which I believe is antithetical to the causes that trans people should stand for. Taking synthetic testosterone whether you're cis or trans does not make you abusive. Hormones of any kind are not inherently good or bad. This book does not understand that. and that really upsets me. I really wanted a t4t tattoo too...
no more t4t tattoo for me :|
There were lots of things that were set up to be strong, but I don't even remember how they were resolved because of two things.
The only trans man in the book appears about halfway through and he sucks. He really does. He goes on a date with the narrator and totally ignores everything she's saying to talk about his own oppression. I wouldn't care if there was at least one other trans guy who didn't suck but no. It's just him. He's the only one and he sucks.
Testosterone is also vilified constantly in this book which I believe is antithetical to the causes that trans people should stand for. Taking synthetic testosterone whether you're cis or trans does not make you abusive. Hormones of any kind are not inherently good or bad. This book does not understand that. and that really upsets me. I really wanted a t4t tattoo too...
no more t4t tattoo for me :|
June 13, 2019
"I was thinking that I want to live in a world where everyone has to choose their gender."
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones was recommended to me by author Larissa Glasser, and I love the concept of this book so much. It's creative and thought-provoking, and I couldn't wait to dig in to this one.
I wish that the book would have gone a little deeper into people's feelings about everything that was going on (and their choices), but it's a novella. That being said, this felt like a complete story, and everything was covered really well. I did get a little confused with the timeline, but I sorted it out. This book was so interesting, and I liked following the path of the narrator's and Lexi's relationship. I hope to read more from Torrey Peters!
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones was recommended to me by author Larissa Glasser, and I love the concept of this book so much. It's creative and thought-provoking, and I couldn't wait to dig in to this one.
I wish that the book would have gone a little deeper into people's feelings about everything that was going on (and their choices), but it's a novella. That being said, this felt like a complete story, and everything was covered really well. I did get a little confused with the timeline, but I sorted it out. This book was so interesting, and I liked following the path of the narrator's and Lexi's relationship. I hope to read more from Torrey Peters!
February 8, 2025
Amazing. Deliciously toxic. Strange. Weird. Loved every minute of this and I wanted more.
February 15, 2025
14022025: “I’m so flush with testosterone that I overinject. How about that, you low-count ration-dependent weaklings?”
buddy read with dom, who does not have goodreads! spoiler alert: they loved this as much as i did. which was a LOT.
ambitious, inventive, daring, gut-wrenching, and proof that even iowa can’t stomp the voice out of everyone. this novella is fast-paced and gripping, told in a nonlinear narrative that follows no pattern but the “emotional truth” (dom’s words) of the protagonist, who iirc goes unnamed. the star of this story is lexi, with her million guns and her toxic queer girl bravado and her post-apocalyptic t4t commune and her utterly insane, utterly human realness. she jumps off the page, vibrant and brash and terrifically alive. torrey peters doesn’t pull her punches, and the literary world is better for it. highly recommended.
more choice quotes:
“I was thinking that I want to live in a world where everyone has to choose their gender.”
“But internally I’m thinking, of course trans girls all love and fuck each other. Who else will?”
“But we have to understand each other well to be so cruel.”
“The more I try to explain, to list the tiny grievances that added up to an intolerable day in my life, the more I sound unhinged.”
“Do you think the words trans women and utopia ever go together in the same sentence?”
“Not that I’m stealth, but in trying to avoid the awkwardness of talking trans stuff with cis people, I’ve ended up allowing my close cis friends to treat me like I’m just like them, which constrains me to act just like them.”
again: HIGHLY recommended! you can read it for free here.
buddy read with dom, who does not have goodreads! spoiler alert: they loved this as much as i did. which was a LOT.
ambitious, inventive, daring, gut-wrenching, and proof that even iowa can’t stomp the voice out of everyone. this novella is fast-paced and gripping, told in a nonlinear narrative that follows no pattern but the “emotional truth” (dom’s words) of the protagonist, who iirc goes unnamed. the star of this story is lexi, with her million guns and her toxic queer girl bravado and her post-apocalyptic t4t commune and her utterly insane, utterly human realness. she jumps off the page, vibrant and brash and terrifically alive. torrey peters doesn’t pull her punches, and the literary world is better for it. highly recommended.
more choice quotes:
“I was thinking that I want to live in a world where everyone has to choose their gender.”
“But internally I’m thinking, of course trans girls all love and fuck each other. Who else will?”
“But we have to understand each other well to be so cruel.”
“The more I try to explain, to list the tiny grievances that added up to an intolerable day in my life, the more I sound unhinged.”
“Do you think the words trans women and utopia ever go together in the same sentence?”
“Not that I’m stealth, but in trying to avoid the awkwardness of talking trans stuff with cis people, I’ve ended up allowing my close cis friends to treat me like I’m just like them, which constrains me to act just like them.”
again: HIGHLY recommended! you can read it for free here.
September 10, 2025
This is the trans-inclusive gender-apocalypse tale I was hoping for from Manhunt. Sure, it lacks the horror elements, but as a piece of speculative trans fiction, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones is unparalleled.
There’s just enough world building to facilitate the reader’s understanding, but not so much as to leave itself open to holes and nitpicking, or bogged down in unbelievable science. More importantly, it’s brave, raw, brimming with believable characters and real-feeling relationships, rich with ethical dilemmas and complexities - all in under 100 pages.
There’s just enough world building to facilitate the reader’s understanding, but not so much as to leave itself open to holes and nitpicking, or bogged down in unbelievable science. More importantly, it’s brave, raw, brimming with believable characters and real-feeling relationships, rich with ethical dilemmas and complexities - all in under 100 pages.
March 24, 2022
t4t babey!!! love the politics of trans care and ethics that torrey peters espouses.
forwards a kind of essentialism vis-a-vis hormones though, even in a world you can essentially build-a-bear your gender. very daring in reconceptualising contagion and trans possibilities, but still hopelessly binary (none of the postdiluvians venture outside of established binary genders, or venture to abolish gender altogether). wish the book would further explore trans identities decoupled from medical transition and hormones (maybe in a full length novel), but an imaginative vignette nevertheless, that reframes what is construed as a cis apocalypse of medical precarity as an everyday trans reality.
forwards a kind of essentialism vis-a-vis hormones though, even in a world you can essentially build-a-bear your gender. very daring in reconceptualising contagion and trans possibilities, but still hopelessly binary (none of the postdiluvians venture outside of established binary genders, or venture to abolish gender altogether). wish the book would further explore trans identities decoupled from medical transition and hormones (maybe in a full length novel), but an imaginative vignette nevertheless, that reframes what is construed as a cis apocalypse of medical precarity as an everyday trans reality.
May 3, 2023
brb getting my t4t tatt to prepare for the gender apocalypse
July 6, 2023
PS3 Skyrim really was in this one, I remember that from reading it.
I find it so weird that Manhunt is coated in references to this, because they aren't actually that similar. Weirdly, also, this book is the more depressing of the two, but Manhunt is the one with all the horrific trauma in it. This isn't that essential to understand either Detransition Baby or Manhunt, but it is connected to the big family tree of Stuff That Goes Back To Nevada. It's pretty alright I guess. T4T
I find it so weird that Manhunt is coated in references to this, because they aren't actually that similar. Weirdly, also, this book is the more depressing of the two, but Manhunt is the one with all the horrific trauma in it. This isn't that essential to understand either Detransition Baby or Manhunt, but it is connected to the big family tree of Stuff That Goes Back To Nevada. It's pretty alright I guess. T4T
May 5, 2020
I was disappointed in this book. The author had a fantastic idea, but rarely ran with it, focusing on too much time on back stories of the characters. I was hoping for more depictions of the world after infection. This could have been an incredibly great (dys)Utopian story . I'm hoping the writer expands on this idea with a full novel.
May 25, 2021
this was great! i wish it had been a full-length novel. will definitely read detransition, baby now
June 23, 2024
all the ideas are cool but honestly nothing landed fully. it’s a perfect 3 stars. meh, but i see what you trying to do i guess.
Read
August 25, 2023Pojebane, ale w dobrym tego słowa znaczeniu. Nie wiem nawet, czy nie wolę Torrey Peters w takim zaczepnym, dystopijnym, chaotycznym i o wiele bardziej radykalnym wydaniu.
November 21, 2021
i really don't think the science holds up, having a medical condition where in your body stops producing sex hormones wouldn't mean you could just choose which sex hormone to shoot up there's still going to be a certain amount of each hormone that your body needs to be healthy and to function correctly and going against that amount will still cause health issues like you wouldn't have choice unless you think a choice between being healthy or loosing bone and muscle mass and having a higher risk of cancer and heart disease is a choice
March 23, 2025
I don't know how to feel about this one. I think it's a story about self-actualization, where the narrator has a lot of internalized-transphobia? There's a feel of being not like the other trans-girls which turns to remorse near the end. I enjoyed the book at the least. Needs a reread to better understand it. Apparently it's being collected in the new book/collection out by her this month!
July 2, 2025
you can really see the influence that this had on Manhunt. excited to read her other works
September 16, 2023
I absolutely love the idea of this book. But it was very interesting to read what came across as a lot of internalized transphobia in the form of the demonization of testoterone and transmasculine people in a book about t4t relationships. All the t4t communities I've been in included transfemme4transmasc as well, enby4enby, etc. The judgments of other trans women by the main character is done because she is worried about being grouped in with others who don't pass enough. In the end she realizes how wrong this was but 5 pages of realization versus 70 pages of putting down other trans women who are less "passing" or more radical isn't enough redemption for me. I read mostly books under 200 pages so i know an amazing plot and characters can be built in such a short length and this book sadly didn't.
February 25, 2024
THIS is what i mean when i say i want more queer books. give me the weird shit, give me the unpolished queer people, give me the problematic and fucked up queer people!
this was an incredibly enjoyable read, with the old idea of a “virus” or “illness” taking over the world and changing life as we’ve known it spun around to a world where everyone has to take the hormones trans people are forced to take to live in the bodies they want to.
the story is told in several different timelines, which was done very well and did exactly what such a storytelling element should do — improve the reading experience!
really incredibly fun and intriguing, i would’ve loved for this to be even longer and more fleshed out, but it still did a great job at this length.
really absolutely recommend this, and i will have to look into more of this author’s books!
this was an incredibly enjoyable read, with the old idea of a “virus” or “illness” taking over the world and changing life as we’ve known it spun around to a world where everyone has to take the hormones trans people are forced to take to live in the bodies they want to.
the story is told in several different timelines, which was done very well and did exactly what such a storytelling element should do — improve the reading experience!
really incredibly fun and intriguing, i would’ve loved for this to be even longer and more fleshed out, but it still did a great job at this length.
really absolutely recommend this, and i will have to look into more of this author’s books!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 27, 2024
Torrey Peters la mujer que tu eres !! madre mía leería mil páginas más de una guerrilla de chicas t4t con la intención de dominar la sociedad occidental… se ha sentido tan original, tan orgánico, tan dinámico !! la ciencia ficción es perfecta y más si todos los personajes que te importan son trans
Read
June 8, 2023I have been struggling to concentrate recently. This leaves me with much stress as I feel the glare of my work, my uni classes, all my unanswered messages, my lacking plans for the future (oops, still don't have a flight out of Korea or a plan for what next and ughh, . Anyways, I'm glad I was able to read this book.
This is an excellent book. Reading this book made me realize that, while anecdotally, it is true that the majority of the trans guys that I know are doing better than the trans women that I know. This book is worth it for the scene in which the main character screams "the world is watching every step I take". So painful, so resilient, so vivid.
This book feels like a short story in the best way possible. It is an exploration of a particular concept with just enough details. It's painful and striking and vulnerable all at once. I definitely recommend it.
What i'm taking with me
- this review was very short but i do think this book will stay with me
- really, it's so short too but my, does it pack a punch
- i'm also just so tired, something about this period of time is draining me
This is an excellent book. Reading this book made me realize that, while anecdotally, it is true that the majority of the trans guys that I know are doing better than the trans women that I know. This book is worth it for the scene in which the main character screams "the world is watching every step I take". So painful, so resilient, so vivid.
This book feels like a short story in the best way possible. It is an exploration of a particular concept with just enough details. It's painful and striking and vulnerable all at once. I definitely recommend it.
What i'm taking with me
- this review was very short but i do think this book will stay with me
- really, it's so short too but my, does it pack a punch
- i'm also just so tired, something about this period of time is draining me
Read
April 3, 2024Enjoyed this read by Torrey a lot more than Detransition, Baby but wasn’t quite able to suspend my disbelief (probably because of how short it is - damn it, novellas). The characters and story were promising and unique but I was definitely left wanting the ideas and character dynamics to be more fleshed out. Might recommend due to the concept alone, but with the caveat that it reads like key points to what could’ve been a lengthier more intriguing read.
March 16, 2025
Yeah…
Like everything I have read from Peters so far, this book is equal parts depressing, thought provoking, and reflective. Flawed characters. Super unique premise, different from anything else she’s written.
This made me feel so many different things in the short time I spent with it—I don’t know whether to curl into a ball and cry or to start screaming and smashing stuff. And somehow I also come away from this wanting to be gentler with myself and others. How does she do that?
Like everything I have read from Peters so far, this book is equal parts depressing, thought provoking, and reflective. Flawed characters. Super unique premise, different from anything else she’s written.
This made me feel so many different things in the short time I spent with it—I don’t know whether to curl into a ball and cry or to start screaming and smashing stuff. And somehow I also come away from this wanting to be gentler with myself and others. How does she do that?
June 15, 2021
(3.5*) !!
August 29, 2021
Really liked the narrative voice. The novella is short and yet it packs a lot of punch: I look forward to reading more from the author.
February 17, 2022
What the fuck!!! What the fuck. I'm obsessed with this. This worldbuilding (on less than 70 pages) reminded me why I love to read dystopias. Dare I say pandemic must-read?
April 8, 2025
idk what to tell you about this one you should probably just read it
June 11, 2023
completely crazy how there is so much going on in only 70 pages, I think I liked this more than detransition baby in some ways
Displaying 1 - 30 of 306 reviews