Hell Followed with Us

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.