Hell Followed with Us

Got me hooked till the end. The writing is both magnificent and haunting. Didn't love the secondary characters

I wanted to love this book so bad. But I really didn't. I mean it was fine in the beginning, although I usually prefer topics of queerness to be discussed without modern language. This might be a personal flaw though. I really like the ALC members and their group dynamic. 

However, it was a little too gory for my taste. I wouldn't even say this was horror really. It was just gross but nothing about it was scary. Especially in the end when the final showdown basically became Godzilla vs kong style. Only now it was Seraph and Dominion. It was very underwhelming. Plus how Benji moves and what he looks like is generally badly described. He is meant to be this monster now with a massive body but his friends can still casually put their arms around his neck? Fucking how. 

I was disappointed in the execution and ending and the gross descriptions aren't my kind of horror. I honestly wouldn't even describe this as dark.  

Abandoned at 35%.

Queer, trans teen boy, Benji, lives in a post-apocalyptic world. I am just not the intended audience for this. I am glad the representation exists and that trans/queer stories are being told, however, I didn't care enough about the world in which Benji resides to even care if he saved the world or not (assuming that's what was supposed to happen). The book is filled with rage at the world, which I understand being filled with rage, but (perhaps a privileged opinion) I am past this rage in my own life. I am glad this book exists for the representation, but I feel like it is a book where the author threw together representation and rage and covered in with a thinly woven story plot.

I'm glad others got things out of it, but I did not.

Beautiful & brutal! Benji shares his humanity, anger, love, and raw courage to care for his found family. I am now a HUGE fan of AJW!

I enjoyed this but if you're squeamish, maybe skip this one. I thought the set up was pretty plausible with a murderous cult of evangelicals who bring on the end of the world by attempting to eradicate all of humanity.

:|

[After two apoalyptic, Evanglical horror books in a row I'm off to read something light and stupid....]

I've waited over two years to read this book and believe me it was worth it.

I had been so looking forward to this... LGBTQ+ characters? Check. Autistic Characters? Check. Fantasy Horror? Check Check Check! So why did it not work for me? The book just felt like reliving religious trauma the book. I couldn't do it. I tried so hard but I just got anxiety everytime I attempted to listen. Perhaps I'll try another from this author.

Um livro definitivamente pesado, a carga emocional das palavras escritas aqui fazem a leitura se tornar densa e sombria, dá para sentir a raiva que o autor tinha quando idealizou esse mundo apocalíptico. Apesar de ter gostado muito, principalmente da representatividade trans e autista que o livro traz, senti falta de um worldbuilding mais bem construído, assim como de um aprofundamento da motivação de alguns personagens. Minha principal critica fica mesmo para o mundo que foi construído que às vezes parece frágil demais e que deixou algumas pontas soltas, nas quais eu fiquei muito confuso.

Fora isso, é um livro sensacional, de uma escrita carregada, profunda e imersa em ódio, medo e desejo por vingança.

Ainda quero ler os outros livros desse autor, principalmente por saber que essa foi sua primeira publicação tradicional.

(4.5) The solution to the destructive cult of capitalism? Queer community. That's some good shit.

so many twists and turns in the plot i always had to stay on my toes. the way the main character is written in a way that is just so

this book hits harder as a queer christian. i am absolutely gobsmacked. from the moment i got to the first nick chapter i was HOOKED and couldn't even stop thinking about this book. i need more queer horror like this. and yes im already 50 pages into the spirit bears its teeth

Not sure if this was more uncomfortable because of the gore or the religious trauma I grew up with. It's very much a look at what it means to live as a queer person when the world around you would rather you hid or just didn't exist at all... and about how people can be the worst monsters, especially with hate-filled religion involved.

This book was a total snooze fest. I wanted to DNF but I was half way through

DNF @ 25%. It wasn't for me. I wanted more horror and more monsters. But it's mostly focused on these LGBT teens surviving the apocalypse and their interpersonal relationships with each other. Just wasn't what I was looking for. Great premise though.

Out of all 40+ books on my TBR for 2024 ‘Hell Followed With Us' was perhaps my most anticipated read. It was for sure in the top five! I had seen mentions of it on social media, I saw the author's accounts.

But oh God, I hated it.

Before this review is condemned as one of an alt-right cisgender white straight man (out of all these I am white and somewhat a man), I want to address the progressive aspects of the book.
It's terrible. I am sorry but that is the truth. It reads like the author going through a checklist to make sure that he's included everyone. I love that Benji ends up in an LGBTQ+ Youth Center; it allows for a cast of very diverse characters to exist naturally.
The book makes it unnatural. It just reads strange. It reads like Tweets, not like actual narration or dialogue.

“So yeah, nice to finally meet you. Xe/xem pronouns.”

I go through the rest of the set: xe, xem, xyr, xemself. I read about neopronouns in a book Dad smuggled from the burn pile of confiscated items at New Nazareth.

Said I was making a mockery of the trans movement for using ‘fake pronouns,' and I nearly strangled him.

the plot

one of those books that I kept wishing I'd written the entire time I was reading it. andrew joseph white gets it.

I haven't read YA since being a teen and I have zero regret. Cathartic and queer as hell! 

This was an absolute fantastic read and I loved it. It was a stunning debut for Andrew Joseph White and I can't wait to see everything else he comes out with. His second book looks extremely creepy and stunning as well. Within the first, maybe 10? 5 even? percent of reading this book I knew it would be a 5 star read and the author a top author. He had such a way with words that I kept wanting to read.

I love the post-apocalyptic genre. Give me it in any format and with any origin story. Virus, alien apocalypse, ton of natural disasters – I don't care. Two of my favourite things in this genre is a) people creating communities. Getting together, living in a school or small neighbourhood. These people creating a school for the children. Anyone who has medical experience setting up a “hospital”. Give me all of it. B) the environment taking over man-made structures. Give me grass all over parking lots. Vines and ivy growing all over buildings. I love it.

This book had both of that in spades and I was here for all of it. The community building here was done by an LGBTQ+ centre – which I thought was excellent. I felt so much for these characters and I was happy to do that. The author did a great job at that and I hope his next book will also feature characters that I love almost immediately.

Benji and Nick were two fantastic characters and were a big reason I didn't want to stop reading. I loved that we got both of their povs and were able to know them more (than just dialogue). Even if we just had Benji's pov I would've been happy because we got to know Nick through the dialogue and his interactions with Benji.

The plot was fantastic. The author definitely has a way with words that make you keep reading and keep you invested in the plot. Almost every chapter had me on the edge of my seat and I wanted to know more about the beginning of everything. So if he ever wanted to write a novella... I'd be right there.

The gore was so well-written. Extremely visual in the writing and pulled no punches at all. Extremely descriptive but done amazingly well, which made it all the better to read it. Tying the gore and the post-apocalypse so closely to religion was a great choice. White certainly didn't hold back but I didn't mind it at all because I know religion often isn't kind to those who don't tick their boxes. This is a dark book and it dealt with very dark themes, specifically church-related but it was done really well.

4 stars bc gore is not my thing !!! But omg this book was beautiful the writing style immaculate the aesthetic gorgeous oh my GOD I love benji and Nick + asd rep slay !!! I love the dynamics I love the struggle I love the WORLDBUILDING it's so good

CW: a bit of deadnaming, traumatic scenes and descriptions, religious and physical abuse, lots of references to the Bible and God, blood, violence, foul language, gore, death, discussions of dysphoria feelings.

“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.” -Benji, Ch. 11, pg 126

If you're expecting a apocalypse story with found family & pocket of happiness, then this is not the story for you.

Hell Followed Us is dark, honest, a bit gory and very queer. All the characters are some form of queer and use all kinds of different pronouns. It also has deep insight on what's it like to be a trans person. The world building is great and you really get a feel for what living and strugging in a apocalyptic world is like.

With that being said, this isn't really a happy book. The only moments of true happiness we see is when Benji is with one of the boys he crushing on. As for the love triangle, it's not really one. Benji doesn't really explore the feelings for one until more than 60% in the book.

Another problem is character development. Nobody besides Benji and maybe Nick & Theo gets any. We don't really learn about anyone else outside of them. It sucks bc this could have really been a queer found family type book. Benji mostly keeps to himself and we never see him hanging with anyone else besides Nick at the ALC.

This book is rather gory. It's doesn't shy away from talking about dead bodies, splatters of blood or crushed skulls. It also has heavy religious themes, there tons of bible verses, prayers, bible references, fictional religious references throughout the entire book.

All in all, I thought was good but the execution could have shown more of all the characters. If a very dark, very queer apocalyptic YA fantasy from the perspective of a trans MC, then this is the book for you.

This book wasn't for me on a couple of levels...and that's fine.

On the first level I would say it's written for a trans audience (and I'm cis), and I love that there's a book like this that trans readers (especially teens) can read and know it was written by a trans person and that they can comfortably expect for the main character's trans experience to be written sensitively. I ofc am happy to read that too but, it's not for me. And that's fine!! I love the idea of this core group surviving the (basically zombie but they don't say zombie) apocalypse bc they barricaded themselves into the LGBTQ youth center. Like textually a smart way to “justify” (not that it needs to be justified but, you know) having this entirely queer crew there and having access to hormones etc in this landscape. Nice.

Anyway the second way it's not for me is that uhhh I didn't realize it's BASICALLY a zombie book and it's like WICKED GROSS BODY HUMOR I had to skim a LOT of stuff because it was like....so gross. (Again to be clear: not the trans stuff!! Being trans isn't gross!! Detailed descriptions of melting internal organs are gross!!!)

Like I picked this up a) bc I heard good reviews and b) bc I thought it was about escaping a fundamentalist Christian cult, which like, it is but also the Christian cult made zombies!!

ANYWAY soo yeah not for me but for some other readers I am sure this book will be very appreciated.

the gist of this story in the words of AJ white himself: “A trans boy has religious trauma and does murder about it”

Hell Followed With Us is a futuristic dystopian religious fanatic driven world where no one but the righteous is allowed to live. Andrew Joseph White takes us into a very dark place where judgment is found everywhere even within the walls of safety.

Hell Followed With Us is dark, broody, and action-packed. It's a horror tale set in the future which reflects today. It's the perfect addition to our Fright Night line up.

I received a free copy of this book and I am writing a review without prejudice and voluntarily.

I really enjoyed the body horror in this book, more so than the revenge ark even though that was satisfying too (who doesn't like seeing christo-fascists getting their comeuppance?). I suspect this book would speak to my fellow fans of the zombie genre. The descriptions of the Graces were magnificent.
It was lovely to see neopronouns being used rather casually.
I wish this book existed when I was younger.

This was my first ever buddy read with https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/15335689-destiny-howling-libraries!!!!!!!! And WOW HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was SO INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!! I LOVED the descriptions of the rot and the changes Benji went through!!!!!!!!! And I fell so deeply in love with these characters, especially Benji and Nick!!!!!!!!!!! I just want them to be happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This now holds a very special place in my heart, and has even managed to make it onto my All Time Favs shelf!!!!!!!!! HIGHLY Recommend if you want a gory, diverse end-of-the-world kind of book, or if you just like horror in general!!!!!!!!!!!