Book review for Hell Followed With Us with TBR and Beyond Tours
Hell Followed With Us is one of those books that lives up to all it’s hype! I was lucky enough to be approved via NetGalley, but I also joined the book tour hosted by TBR and Beyond Tour! You can check out the full tour here!
Hell Followed With Us is a YA horror read that came out on the 7th of June. This is Andrew Joseph White’s debut novel (although he has published shorter pieces of fiction before) and was published by Peachtree. It’s 416 pages long and is set in the US, after a cult managed to unleash an apocalyptic disease that wiped out the better part of humanity and created mutated most of those remaining into monsters.
Book Review
Benji was infected by the Flood; a disease created by right wingers to cleanse the population of all sinners. He was selected with a particular strain, one that would turn him into a being that could control the monsters created by the flood itself. As he attempts to escape with his dad, he’s find himself with a group of teenagers who are also trying to survive. As the cult comes back for him; he has to figure out how to help defend this new community from what’s to come.
When requesting this from NetGalley, I was just thinking about that gorgeous cover! But honestly, I don’t think I’ve read a book like this one before! I can’t imagine a person describing all those transformations. The detail is just insane!
The representation and all the nuance was phenomenal! The fact that we have all these queer characters, and we have different pronouns included was wonderful to read.
The plot itself was also incredibly different! I did not see that coming from Theo or Nick, but at the same time that was so well done that it didn’t feel like it was out of the blue. Despite all that blood and gore, we technically have a happy ending, but it’s also not entirely happy because of all that’s happened leading up to it.
I can’t wait to see everyone’s art after they’ve read the book! I’m still having a hard time picturing the Graces, and I would love to see the takes on that!
I’m privileged enough to not need to focus on trigger warnings, but I do want to say that there is a lot of gore, misgendering, deadnaming, and religious abuse! I would highly recommend that you take a look at the trigger warnings once just to be prepared; I don’t think there was anything senseless, for the sake of it, but what you would expect from a religious cult in a post apocalyptic world.
Prepare to die. His kingdom is near.
Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sectthat unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.
But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.
Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.
A furious, queer debut novel about embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors. Perfect for fans of Gideon the Ninth and Annihilation.
Content Warning: parental death, graphic death, body horror, violence, religious abuse, discussions of genocide; instances of homophobia, transphobia, misgendering, and deadnaming.
About the author
Andrew Joseph White is a queer, trans author from Virginia, where he grew up falling in love with monsters and wishing he could be one too. He is a graduate student in George Mason University’s Creative Writing program and has a habit of cuddling random street cats. Andrew writes about trans kids with claws and fangs, and what happens when they bite back.
He is represented by Zabé Ellor of the Jennifer de Chiara Literary Agency.
Author photo by Alice Scot
The Girl Who Reads 
Leave a Reply