“I will keep Seraph hidden, locked up in my chest, whatever it takes to make sure the Angels never get the weapon they made of me. But I’m just so tired of running.”
Publisher: Peachtree teen.
Release date: 7th June 2022
Pages: 416
Representation: LGBTQIA+ (Trans FTM, mention of MTF, Gay, Lesbian, Non-binary), Latinx, BIPOC, Hijabi, Autistic.
Trigger warnings: *these content warnings come directly from the author* Violence (explicit gore, arson, murder and mass murder, warfare, terrorism), Body horror, Transphobia (misgendering, dead-naming with name written out repeatedly, threats of transphobic violence, forced detransition), Religious abuse/Christian terrorism, combined with elements of eco-fascism, Abusive parents and domestic partner violence (including returning to an abusive partner and victim self-blame), Self-injury (including attempted suicide of a side character), Emetophobia (vomiting) warning throughout.
Summary: Benji is 16, Trans, and on the run. Raised by a religious cult in a world that’s been ravaged by a deadly virus, he knows he doesn’t have long left. The bio-weaponized mutation they put inside him is growing, and there’s no way he can stop it. All he can do now is keep himself out of their hands, even if it means surviving alone. That’s until he meets Nick, and a group of other teens that survived simply by being in the right place at the right time-the local LGBTQIA+ community centre. With every passing day, Benji is getting closer to exploding-and the cult isn’t going to stop until they get him back.
Purchase the book using the following links to support Indie bookshops, and me:
US: https://bookshop.org/a/85337/9781682633243
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/9236/9781682633243
Hell followed with us sets out to burn the world to its knees, and leaves us stood awestruck in the charred rubble of its success.
Note: I am a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and fall under the Trans umbrella, so therefore feel able to talk about the representation in this book with an honest yet critical eye.
This book handles real world, hard hitting issues in a way I’ve never seen before. There’s no pandering, it’s brutal in its assessments and honest in its outcomes. It manages all this whilst still being respectful to true religion-you believe in any kind of god? Cool. You want to slaughter the world in his name? Definitely not cool. The entire message of the book comes across so simply; do what you want, be who you want, believe in whatever you want, look however you want-literally be a monster if you have to be- just don’t be an asshole.
The only issue with it I found was that occasionally there was a lack of tension, undercut by the myriad of emotions Benji was feeling. We knew the world was at stake, but it sometimes never felt that way. He is an emotional character, and that;s okay, but I wanted a few more sentences of atmospheric building, showing just how much was truly at stake instead of just telling us.
The horror was bloody, and didn’t shy away for the sake of the young characters. The idea of the monsters-and especially the regular mention of their teeth-made me feel uneasy in the right way, the way you’d expect a horror novel to. There was just the right amount of horror and action, with quiet scenes mixed in when needed. It helped that it took part in a world that dragged us in right at the very beginning. We were part of it from the start, and that immersion dragged us along until the very end where we were left as bloody and scarred as many of the characters.
The characterisation was extremely impressive, and although I didn’t always agree with everything the characters did, every single one of them felt real-even the side characters that we saw barely any of. They were fleshed out, and representative of more than just the plots needed them for. I was especially impressed by Nick, and how the aspects of his autism were weaved into all of his actions-it didn’t define him, and it didn’t diminish what he was capable of. Not once did he or Benji consider himself not enough because of it, and that’s extremely important. He wasn’t strong, or smart or a good soldier in spite of his autism-he was all of these things with his autism, side by side, which is a thing you see so rarely in fiction.
The rest of the representation (though do not take my word about race representation above that of reviewers of non-Caucasian ethnicities) is immaculate and unapologetic; there are people of multiple ethnicities, religions, and identities; It even includes neo-pronouns for one of the side characters. It even tackles transphobia within the LGBTQIA+ community-looking down on others for not being queer like you are, for having a different idea of what it means to be yourself. I imagine there would be so many people looking at this book and saying “the world is literally ending, is wearing a dress that big a deal?”, but what those people don’t understand is that for a lot of Trans people, wearing wrong socially-gendered clothing does feel like the end of the world. Is it dramatic? Maybe, but that doesn’t stop the feeling being any less real. It doesn’t stop it being any less of a problem.
It also tells us something that is extremely rare to hear; that It’s okay to get angry. There’s rage etched into almost every page of this book, and you can feel it seeping through the words of every character that’s ever been made to feel like something less just for being themselves. You can see it in the corpses, and the creatures built from the remains of a virus that has done nothing but destroy. It’s an honest anger, and it’s beautifully written. Characters are condemned when they use their anger to hurt those undeserving, but anger flows freely when confronting abusers and never is it even once implied that anyone should “be the bigger person.” and forgive those that caused so much hurt they set out to destroy the world.
Its shining glory: It’s unapologetic in everything it offers; from horror to rage to representation to a scathing review of religious abuse. It takes the world and strips it bare.
Its fatal flaw: Despite the gore, horror and abuse, there was occasionally a lack of tension and atmosphere that you’d expect with such a vicious plot. You knew the literal world was at stake, but it never actively felt that way.
Read this if: You like gory horror, and harsh realities. You like both character and plot driven stories. You want LGBTQIA+ representation that is unapologetic.
Skip this if: You don’t like gore; it’s not for the faint hearted. You dislike books that are character-driven, where the character is clearly driven by the plot. You don’t like religious talk-there’s a lot of it.
Purchase the book using the following links to support Indie bookshops, and me:
US: https://bookshop.org/a/85337/9781682633243
UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/9236/9781682633243
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One response to “ARC Review: Hell followed with us, by Andrew Joseph White”
[…] HELL FOLLOWED WITH US by Andrew Joseph WhiteAnother Indie Highlight! Hell followed with us follows 16 year old Trans boy Benji. Raised by a religious cult in a world that’s been ravaged by a deadly virus, he knows he doesn’t have long left. The bio-weaponized mutation they put inside him is growing, and there’s no way he can stop it. All he can do now is keep himself out of their hands, even if it means surviving alone. That’s until he meets Nick, and a group of other teens that survived simply by being in the right place at the right time-the local LGBTQIA+ community centre. With every passing day, Benji is getting closer to exploding-and the cult isn’t going to stop until they get him back. It’s an explosive, bloody read that shows what happens when the monsters locked away inside us try to force their way out. In Benjis case literally, as it leaves him with more fangs than anyone should have, and a hunger he needs to fight if he wants to help save the world. Representation: LGBTQIA+ (Trans FTM, mention of MTF, Gay, Lesbian, Non-binary), Latinx, BIPOC, Hijabi, Autistic.Trigger Warnings: *This list comes direct from the Author* Violence (explicit gore, arson, murder and mass murder, warfare, terrorism), Body horror, Transphobia (misgendering, dead-naming with name written out repeatedly, threats of transphobic violence, forced detransition), Religious abuse/Christian terrorism, combined with elements of eco-fascism, Abusive parents and domestic partner violence (including returning to an abusive partner and victim self-blame), Self-injury (including attempted suicide of a side character), Emetophobia (vomiting) warning throughout. See my full review of Hell Followed with us here. […]
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