3,5

This story is very unique and the idea is amazing. For me I had a bit of difficulty with the pacing at the beginning but overall very good, but I don't think I was the right audience for this book. Also I could I say not to that beautiful cover you know.

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White is a phenomenal work that features well thought out and portrayed LGBTQ+, POC, and neurodivergence themes. The story follows Benji a young trans teen who has been subjected to being raised by a religious terrorist cell called the Angels. This cell had engineered the end of the world through a mass bio weapon attack and swooped in during the downfall of humanity to gain total oppressive control of what remained.

Benji manages to escape the group at the cost of losing everything. He runs as far as he can from the group in the hopes of never being caught and brought back. After escaping he meets a rogue band of rebels who are doing everything they can to survive and be rid of the threat the Angels pose. Benji is brought into the fold and learns what it is to be accepted all while dealing with secrets of his own. He fights along side them to overcome the oppressive force.

Benji is a fantastic character and truly embodies the fight every person goes through- the right to exist unapologetically and wholly embrace who they are without fear. This book has wonderful character growth and builds amazing relationships between characters on the foundation of the found family trope so many love. This book brings forth guttural and real reactions and emotions as you follow Benji’s tale. The depiction of queer relationships and neurodivergence is truly believable and well developed. I cannot recommend this book enough. Most definitely worth 5 stars!

Great concept, but sadly the storytelling wasn't there for me. Reading it felt like looking at a slightly out of focus picture. The author surely has potential and I'm excited to see what else they have, but this book just wasn't for me.

At 40%, I'm struggling to stay engaged with this one. I'm so disappointed--it sounds like my kind of book. Fantastic premise and rep, meh execution. Others LOVE this book, so ignore me, k!

wow. so i'm not a horror fan, generally. and especially not a religious trauma, blood and guts, body horror fan. but this book. there is so much that i hated and i think that's why it's so good. a genuinely uncomfortable and disturbing read.

check the author's content warning at the beginning, this isn't a kind book.

A trans boy escapes from a religious cult and lands in a lgbtq+ youth center and then nothing happens for the next 65% of the book.

I was intrigued by the premise. It’s so unlike everything I’ve ever read and I liked the combination of religious cult and monsters. Sadly it was not quite what I expected.

All of the characters, except for maybe Benji, are shallow at best. The author included so many side characters whose names I couldn’t possibly remember because they were so irrelevant to the story. They do nothing. Which is on theme because nothing actually happens for most of the book.

Yeah they kill people and gory stuff happens, but to me it was all for show, not anything that moves the plot forward. It was so boring. I skimmed the ending because it was so underwhelming.

A fundamentalist cult has released Armageddon on the general population, and Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run. The cult has infected him with a bioweapon and believes that he will be their savior. As the bioweapon changes him into a monster, he’s saved by by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC, and their autistic leader, Nick. Nick has motives of his own, however, and is hiding his own secrets.

This book ticked a lot of my interest boxes. Trans main character. Post-apocalyptic plague. Weird, religious cult. Queer rep. Neurodivergent rep. Sci-fi/fantasy. Dystopian. If any of these things are your jam, definitely check out this weird book. It’s got a lot going for it. You can get it now wherever you procure your books.

Benji is an intriguing main character, we see him trying to escape from the Angels right at the start of the book, and his journey from there is fascinating. The body horror and the trans representation are right up my street. I love Nick, and the autistic representation shown through his character is very accurate and relatable. This book is about survival, and a bunch of queer teens sticking together - not only to keep each other alive, but also to defeat the genocidal Angels. As much as I love this book, I do wish there had been a bit more of an explanation at the start about how the world came to be in the state that it's in. The story is excellent though and I'd love to read more of White's work!

A blood splattered debut masterfully exploring the horrors of fundamentalism and the insidiousness of Christian "save the children" rhetoric. Adults in White's post apocalyptic world are mostly useless or actively harmful, leaving the teens to fight back against a world that's trying to use and/or destroy their bodies. It's rare to find a YA book that lingers over every gory detail and celebrates monstrosity like this!

(Content warnings: graphic body horror, graphic gore, transphobia, misgendering, deadnaming, parental abuse, vomit, dysphoria, blood, death, murder, genocide, religious bigotry, gun violence, medical trauma, death of parent)

Things this book is: engaging, graphic, gut-wrenching and special in a way only a book about a trans, gay character embracing his monstrosity and turning it against his abusers could be (though there were points where I felt I liked the concept more than the execution). I enjoyed it, but MAN, it's definitely one of those books I wish existed earlier because I know it would've been cathartic to read it back in middle school. Probably would've helped me figure out some Stuff™️ sooner, too.

Also, I NEED to talk about Nick, because ohhhh my god. This book kind of made me realize that thanks to stories like this I've actually gotten more or less used to good trans rep existing (and I love that I can say that), but I definitely haven't gotten used to good autistic rep existing. As demonstrated by the fact that Nick's first POV chapter hit me so hard I cried. I really can't describe how much his portrayal resonated with me as an autistic person, and how much that meant to me. (He gets significant page time on account of being the love interest, sure, but i still kinda wish we'd gotten more of him and his POV.)

And on the other side, for the flaws: the writing came off as somewhat awkward and way too overdramatic at times, but I'm willing to chalk that up to this being 1. a debut and 2. post-apocalyptic YA (i mean, what's post-apocalyptic YA if not angsty and overdramatic?). Some of the interactions with the LGBTQ+ Centre kids were a bit too corny, and the characters themselves could've been developed more - they just felt kind of flat and forgettable, which made Benji's narrative of finding a home and family in them feel a little less impactful and compelling than it could've been.

Personally, this book didn't enthral me as much as I hoped it would, but I've got a feeling it's going to be very important to a whole bunch of trans kids, and I'll definitely keep an eye out for Andrew Joseph White's future releases.

(Also, apropos nothing: pretty funny of the author to name the one transmed character Calvin ngl. i see what you did there)

(Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!)

‘Corpses dangle from the wires, yellow-pink organs hanging from their stomachs to obscure their nakedness, like Adam and Eve ashamed of their bodies.’


God, this book. Reading it was like looking into a fun-house mirror, seeing a picture of myself from the back or from an odd angle. I always find it the hardest to speak about art that impacts me the most. The short of it is I loved it, I loved it, I loved it.

Everything worked for me here - the setting, the atmosphere, the themes, the characters. The prose was sharp and ruthless, the pace was exactly right. I love body horror and this didn’t disappoint. The descriptions were gory and delicious, you could tell White was enjoying himself.

Benji and Nick are great, but I also adored the side characters - they all have their own things going on so they feel well fleshed-out. The villains are absolutely terrifying and terrible and I hated them so much.

To circle back to Benji and Nick - I loved the direction their romance took, it made so much sense to who they are as people. More relationships should be an eldritch creature and his deadly boyfriend in my opinion.

I could’ve read this book forever. I’m so grateful to Andrew Joseph White for writing it, will definitely pick up anything else he does.

Also! How could I forget, another brilliant cover from Evangeline Gallagher, one of my favourite illustrators.

Thanks so much to Peachtree/Peachtree Teen and Netgalley for providing the free ARC.

I finished "Hell Followed With Us" two months ago and I still don't know what to say. I was really scared to read this book because of the (body) horror elements, and there were some really gross and horrific scenes in there, but the story was so amazing, and I love Benji so much! I really want to read more books about trans rage, and I can't wait to see what Andrew Joseph White writes next.

I was so excited to check out this book after hearing so much praise for it! I typically love passionate, heartwarming YA LGBTQ+ stories about finding community and featuring diverse representation - Casey McQuiston, Alice Oseman, & so many more. However I just could not get into this one. The gore was overkill for my taste (felt genuinely nauseous in parts) - descriptions can be quite graphic, the trigger warnings don't lie. It was tough to read about a pandemic-inspired situation so soon after suffering through a real pandemic, hitting a little too close to home for me. It was also confusing to follow, the fantasy and world-building not explained terribly well so it was hard to keep track of what exactly was going on.

This may be much more suited for YA lovers who can easily get into high-fantasy stories and can stomach the gore and horror. Characters are truly diverse, featuring representation for different genders, neurotypes & religions - so many readers will be able to relate to characters like them. I'm glad this book exists; just not one that's for me personally.

Overall, I think this was an okay read.
I found the horror scenes to be well done and not repetitive, and it mixed well with the tight plot and the transformation Benji goes through. The world building was a bit lacking, I was spending too much time being confused about how the Graces and Seraphs worked exactly to really get lost in the story. It read quickly but theWhile the trans rep did not do it for me, I know that several trans reviewers have had a positive experience with there was just so many things happening at once and we barely get a moment to breathe.
The story also includes many Bible quotes without ever diving deeper into them. If you have not grown up Christian, I guess a fair bit of the meaning will go over your head.
While the trans rep did not do it for me, I know that several trans reviewers have had a positive experience with it.

Mainly I am wondering why this is a YA title - I personally think the depth of the themes explores, as well as the gratuitous gore and general concept, are not for the average 16-year-old.

This book falls under the radar but oh my word is it a brilliant mix of urban fantasy and queer. The writing feels nostalgic in a way that is hard to capture, it is a little gritty, and at times difficult to get through but oh so important. I really enjoyed everything about Hell Followed with Us; the character arcs, writing, and the plot were all top notch

I received an ARC of Hell Followed With Us from Peachtree Teen in exchange for an honest review.

Hell Followed With Us left me deeply conflicted. It takes place in a world in which a cult has used a bioweapon to eradicate most of humanity, and focuses on Benji, a sixteen-year-old trans boy who is on the run from that fundamentalist sect and finds refuge with a group of queer teens who have managed to survive the apocalypse—but they don’t know that Benji is infected, and he will soon transform into Seraph, an abomination capable of completing the cult’s destructive work.

Let’s start with the good: this is probably the queerest book I’ve ever read. Almost every major character is part of the LGBTQ+ community, and this allows White to do something I haven’t encountered often in literature—portray a spectrum of perspectives on queerness from queer characters. They openly disagree on subjects such as binding, pronouns, and transitioning, and not only is it extraordinarily refreshing, but it made me (as a trans person) feel seen in a way that I haven’t even from many novels featuring queer characters. It’s a great reminder, too, that our community is not a monolith, but is made up of individuals who are still figuring things out.

White’s prose, while not exceptional, is solid and satisfying. He doesn’t shy away from gory detail; Hell Followed With Us certainly ranks among the most violent YA books I’ve ever read, and the body horror is off-the-charts bonkers. (I’d love to know if White was influenced at all by The Last of Us, because the imagery often evokes Naughty Dog’s 2013 masterpiece. The name of the bioweapon—the Flood—also brings Halo to mind.) The sheer madness on display here is in some ways reminiscent of Gideon the Ninth, although White lacks Muir’s irreverence and impeccable craftsmanship.

Other aspects work less well. Characters aren’t always given the time and attention they deserve because the story is so stuffed with action and violence and paced at such a breakneck speed, and the stakes are muddled at best: conversations about the subtleties of queerness seem out-of-place in a post-apocalyptic setting, and that setting also makes it difficult to become invested when I, as a reader, am asked to care about the fate of humanity rather than individual characters. Hell Followed With Us would have benefitted from a smaller scale and more intimate focus.

All in all, it’s a mixed bag. The speculative fiction elements don’t always mesh well with the nuanced depictions of queerness, and I would have preferred more of the latter than the former. But there’s a lot to like here—Hell Followed With Us isn’t quite like anything else I’ve ever read, and I am curious to find out what White does next.

The story is pretty impressive - a young trans boy is on the run from the cult that raised him and needs him to unleash more destruction against against non believers in a post-apocalyptic world. While on the run he is rescued by a group of teens from the local LGBTQ center that has been surviving since the Flood started. However, not everything is as it seems and both MC have secrets that could destroy one another.
This read was unlike my usual reads as it contains explicit gore, body horror, religious abuse/Christian terrorism but I’m happy I read it. It provided insight into the body dysmorphia some trans people can have and how society usually makes it worse.

“ Or maybe a better way to word it would be, it gets easier for me to forget the pain of being trans. Being transgender is who you are and the pain is what the outside does to you. The pain is what happens when you and the world go for each other’s throats.”
The reason I’m giving this 4 starts instead of 5 is because of the writing style where at times it was confusing figuring out who was doing what or what happened and having to re-read a paragraph to figure it out.

I absolutely loved this mind bending and dystopian read! The representation and thrilling atmosphere held my attention and I was captivated with a love for the characters that I didn’t expect. Overall a fun weekend read (though prepare for the gore!)

**Thank you to Netgallery and the publisher for giving me an ARC for a honest review. All opinions my own.*

Hell Followed With Us is not my typical read. It is full of gore, and horror, and fucked up shit that I typically could not consume, but Benji and the ALC's characters made everything worth it.

I was raised as a Catholic - and it wasn't close to what happens in this book - but close enough to relit my rage against organized religion.

Most reviews will tell you about the synopsis - and what the synopsis already told you, you know that. It's a waste of you reading it, and a waste of me writing it. But, I will tell you more about this book in another way.

This book brings a trans boy Benji into who he is, and who he wants to be. It is a very real book, with characters that would be outside in the world - they all make stupid decisions, and most of them aren't very likable to me, but you understand their motives, and why they choose the way they do. You understand that they're trying to protect their loved ones in the best way they can, and could.

I think the only problem I really had with this book was the ending. I am not going to go into any detail - because it is a book you need to go blind into. It's a book, that is better off not knowing much. But, the ending knocked off a .25 stars for me, and that's okay.

Read it though, it's a very well written story full of queer rage and dimensional characters. You'll enjoy it, I think, but be aware of the trigger warnings.

The trigger warnings from the authors website: https://andrewjosephwhite.com/content-warnings%3A-hfwu

Dark and brutal with emotions as raw as an open wound, with both Queer and neurodivergent teens accurately represented, I really should have enjoyed this book more than I did. It was a good story, but there was something lacking in the world building for me.

The story throws you into the action, right as Benji is escaping something, and you're really left to piece together what exactly is going on, what the state of the world is and what the Angels and the Graces even are. After finishing the story I'm still not quite sure of the full picture.

The plot heavily centers on body horror, which is my jam, and I really enjoyed that and the relationship between Benji and Nick, the leader of the Acheson LGBTQ+ Youth Center, or ALC. Nick is Autistic, and has one of the best representions of that I've ever read, I really enjoyed his chapters and related strongly to him.

I really enjoyed the Queer and Neurodivergent rep, and the fraught, toxic relationship between Benji and Theo. I just couldn't help but wish that I got a better explanation as to how the world came to be as it was, and that I could picture the world better too.