Thank you to Peachtree Teen and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Hell Followed With Us is a dark story among queer characters, ami. The cover is gorgeous and the whole thing lifts you up like you're floating seeing the earth beneath you. The writing was so terrifying but beautiful. I was so soaked in the pages. There are so many elements such as blood and gore.

I had a good and unique journey reading this.

Reading this is realizing you’ve been holding back a scream of pain and anguish, and Benji reaches out and says he’ll scream with you. And all you want is to grab his hand and scream and scream and scream.

It hurts and it feels righteous and it feels inevitable. You scream and scream. Right there with Benji. Crying and screaming and begging.

I don’t know how else to put to words how it felt to read this. It slowly crept in until it was ripping me apart… Or maybe ripping me open, allowing feelings to release.

I may not have grown up in the same religious context Benji did (as I was raised Catholic), but in my heart lives a pit of religious trauma I often try to ignore. The kind of pain that suddenly makes itself known. Like watching Midnight Mass and realizing the pain has been there all along but maybe you can cry it out. Like reading this book and realizing the pain might be screamed out.

I am glad I picked this book up. The representation was fantastic and despite how messed up the entire situation was it was so comforting to read a story in which a character is just accepted and embraced with none of the regular homophobia that is often encountered in books. The plot didn't go as far as I wanted it to and some of the relationships were not as developed as I would have liked - maybe this just isn't the book for me but I can't wait to read more from this author. Thank you to net galley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy.

Andrew Joseph White - Hell Followed with Us
Hell Followed With Us has to be one of the strangest YA fantasy horror novels I have read in ages and will probably make more sense to American audiences, due to its heavy use of religion, which might pass UK audiences by. It also has terrific LGBTQIA+ representation, with most of the characters falling under that banner due to the complex nature of the story. The main character is a transgender boy called Benji who is on the run from a cult (a type of Evangelical Christians) who unleashed Armageddon through a virus which Benji is connected to, leading to some very gruesome body horror as the infection can turn him into a dangerous bioweapon. Whilst looking for a place to hide Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the Acheson LGBTQ+ Centre, known as the ALC (I couldn’t help thinking of the YMCA!) and the wide range of gender representations in the centre and the pronouns they use to identify themselves.

Teens who are interested in gender are sure to get a lot out of this book as it goes out of its way to be inclusive and builds a highly original, and wildly inventive story, around Armageddon. However, readers not so interested in this kind of gender thing might find it plays too big a part in the story. Benji’s sexuality was nicely explained, from his days in the church to how he likes to dress, going into detail about breast binders and menstruation etc. It was heartening to have an autistic character Nick) lead the ALC, who realises the truth about Benji and his inner monster. This was a very gory book, which will have many triggers for readers who might have had similar problems as Benji and Hell Followed With Us is a rage filled blast at conformity, told via a very unique story. At times it was not easy to follow but you will rarely see such a large and unapologetically queer collection of characters as in this novel. AGE RANGE 14+

This one was religious overload. I did not make it past a few chapters with this one my lord. The chapters I did read felt very confusing and I was so lost.

Thanks to Pridebooktours, Peachtree Teen and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I went into this book with completely different expectations and found myself completely surprised by every twist and turn the story took. There was an overall very religious vibe that I was not really here for.

Christianity kinda skeeves me out and I don’t really like to see it that heavily depicted in books, those just aren’t the kind of books I want to read. Hell Followed With Us had way too much religion in it for me and Benji suffered too much trauma for a book that was marketed as being about trans revenge.

Benji only fought back and was badass like twice in the entire book which was a supreme let down since it felt like the book was just to make Benji suffer.

I was a big fan of all the horror elements and gore throughout the book, love me a good monster boy.

The setting was pretty cool with the monsters everywhere and being post apocalyptic, definitely gave me Walking Dead vibes.

I was obsessed with the amount of Queer Rep in the book! So many identities and gender expressions, especially within the main cast at the LGBT center. I did find it somewhat difficult to keep everyone’s names straight since some of the names were similar, or there were a lot of names characters that only made a single appearance.

I absolutely hate knowing a trans characters dead name in a book, it’s unnecessary and is a discredit to the character. We as readers didn’t need to know Benjis dead name, it added literally nothing to the story.

Hell Followed was an exciting read that I just wish had more trans joy and badassery than trans trauma.

When I started reading Hell Followed with Us, all I knew from friends was that it was spectacular. I’d read the synopsis and expected some level of horror…but I was not ready for the first chapter. Immediately, we are thrown into an apocalyptic world, and the main character Benji’s experience is filled with religious trauma and body horror. And it’s incredible. Andrew Joseph White masterfully crafts a world that we experience, quite literally, on a visceral level.

I didn’t expect to love the body horror as much as I did but here we are! Something about the apocalyptic grunge of it all was super satisfying. The descriptions and experiences of violently mangled bodies, the result of a bioweapon created by a religious cult, somehow perfectly mesh with the seemingly pristine and holy religious texts that are quoted throughout. There’s a cacophonic dissonance between the brutal reality of the world that the teenage main characters inhabit and the vision of salvation the adults preach about.

However, while these aspects are horrific in their own right, I had the strongest reaction to all the world-building around a fictional pandemic. Descriptions of dead and mangled bodies? No problem! Mentions of masks? No thank you. Encountering my lived reality of existing in a pandemic in a fictional story was somehow scarier than anything else.

There is so much to say about this book. About how the body horror and dissonance intersect with the experience of the trans main character. How it makes space for queer rage in a unique way. The ways in which the found family aspects are some of my favourite representations of queer communities. But I don’t really have words for all of those thoughts and some are not mine to speak on. So instead, here’s a cobbled-together and shortened version of what I can say about this book:

At its core, Hell Followed with Us is seething with rage. Rage against the systems that oppress the most vulnerable, rage against violent transphobia and rage against fundamentalism of all kinds. It is a burning, screaming testament to the power of anger. Few things excite me more in fiction than characters, particularly teenagers, who get to be unapologetically angry. So many stories require their characters to be nice, soft and agreeable. Hell Follows with Us sets those expectations aflame. Benji is filled with righteous rage and honestly, I don’t think there’s any other way to survive in the world of this book.

I can’t fully express how much reading a story about this deep-rooted anger at the world means to me. It’s cathartic and invigorating and healing all at once. No, you don’t have to go down quietly. You can be dragged through hell and back, burn everything around you down and come out the other side.

In many ways, Hell Followed with Us is a tale of survival in a world that does its best to snuff you out. It’s a love letter to queer kids, particularly trans kids, who are forced to live in that reality outside of the pages of a book. Hell Followed with Us feels like the permission to use the anger and set the world ablaze.

This is by far one of the best books I've read this year. By equal turns heartwarming and stomach-churning, Hell Followed With Us is a stunning reflection on current society, and particularly chilling in light of current US politics and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The characters were complex and well-realised, with even the supporting cast members pulling on my heartstrings. And of course I adored Benji and Nick, those poor boys got put through so much! The prose is both stunningly beautiful and viscerally horrifying (in the best way) and I can't wait to see what White writes next!

trans religious trauma horror with such a diverse cast was a ride and a great one, this was something I did not know I needed in my life

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is excellent!!! I could not put this book down. I read it in an afternoon, and have no regrets.

Dystopia, LGBTQIA rep, religious/political bantering, culture vibes, revenge, betrayal, and multiple POVs.
The armosphere was chef's kiss! This book literally has everything I need in a book!

Trigger warnings include the following: transphobia, vomiting throughout, mass murder (including children), domestic violence (and returning to abuser), attempted suicide, and death of a parent.

3.5 stars - I really enjoyed this! White's writing is absolutely breathtaking; I was both amazed and jealous by his sheer talent. From the first page I was absolutely hooked which is why I was able to read it so quickly. I was enamoured by our main character Benji and primarily, the world he grew up in. If you know me, you know I fuuuuucking love religious cults (disclaimer: not that i would join one obvi, but the idea of them) and White does not hold back with this one. The novel also has amazing diversity, varying between different sexualities, cultures, beliefs that I found to be handled wonderfully. The way White was able to weave horrific elements into this story - I personally love when horror is intertwined into Christianity and creating these puritanic ideologies that feel so realistic and scary. White did a fantastic job describing the more gory and bloody aspects of the narrative. However, despite the fact that White did an amazing job with descriptions, I think the world was left a little confusing. I wish more world-building was done to help place us within the story. There were lots of elements that needed more exploring for me to have truly loved this. This was unlike anything I have ever read, and I just wish I had more. Will 100% be picking up White's next book because I cannot believe this book came out of someone's brain and I need more.

Hell Followed With Us is a visceral look at the harm of Evangelical Christianity through the lens of horror, ecofascist dystopia, and the trans experience. It aims to drive a knife right into your chest and delivers.

Hell Followed With Us is a masterpiece that weaves Biblical verse and dystopian horror to shock the reader through the horrors of Evangelical Christian tyranny. White will use bible verses to convey the duality of the horror and conflicting feelings our protagonist Benji feels regarding his upbringing. Showing that while Benji has physically escaped The Angelic Movement and their dogmatic belief in it being “god’s will”, the earth is destroyed through the flood - a virus that kills and warps the human body into twisted animalistic creatures called Graces or Abominations, more bone, sinew, and amalgamation of human parts than humanity - he has still work to go in deprogramming himself from their awful doctrine.

This is best exemplified by Benji’s mantra “be good” - his father’s last dying wish after being killed by the Angels while trying to escape with his son. A mantra he struggles to define for himself - is being good a matter of giving in to the Angels’ hellish plans for him, or is it to live as his true self as a boy. And while he knows it is to live freely as himself, his struggle to still define for himself what this means is what makes Benji a truly memorable character.

These passages throughout the text both compliment the situation and horrify the reader. You viscerally feel Benji’s horror and subjugation under those words. Just as much as the changes you witness that happened because of Seraph - a super version of the virus the Angels created, that will eventually turn Benji into a puppet for the Angels to use to wipe out the rest of humanity. You can’t help but cry for Benji’s predicament - even if you have never experienced his traumas - because White masterfully puts onto the page the horror of this kind of tyranny.

And while Hell Followed With Us presents us with trans rage in all its glory through Benji’s suffering and fight against the Angels. It also gives us moments of Trans joy and discovery through Benji’s interactions with the ALC (Acheson LGBTQ+ Centre) - a group of teenagers who rescue him from the Angels campaigning out in the abandoned LGBTQIA+ centre. Through his interactions with the ALC and specifically the leader of The Watch, Nick, Benji grows beyond his upbringing, finds his way in this dystopian horror, and truly defines and becomes the “good” man he wants to be.

Hell Followed With Us is a masterful work of dystopian horror that lets you feel every wound physical and emotional that its characters go through—taking you on an emotional rollercoaster ride of Trans joy and rage. And it is one of the best books I have read in 2022.

Thia is one hell of a great book. The writing is stunning and the world building fantastic. It carries a lot of the anger we feel nowadays so that is great too. This book is just all around fantastic.

Thank you to Netgalley and Peachtree Teen for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t even know where to start with this review. I have put off writing this review for so long because I just loved it so much I don’t even know how to talk about it. Hell Followed With Us absolutely exceeded my expectations. I expected to really enjoy it. YA horror is a genre I have loved everything I’ve read so far, but this book totally blew everything out of the water. I really enjoyed the discussions of religious trauma, being queer and trans, and being a teen trying to survive in the world. I am not a religious person, but this hit so many feels and fears regardless of being not religious. It made me feel so many things in so many ways.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is gory and filled with a ton of body horror. It is definitely the kind of horror book that doesn’t explain everything, and for me that was totally okay. I loved being thrown into the story with no explanation and just having to figure it out as I went along. I honestly didn’t need the explanations for things because I was just so intrenched in the story and was devouring it.

This book was cathartic in a way that I didn’t know I needed. It hit the shy, scared, little queer kid in my chest that I didn’t know wanted to feel anger and revenge for the missed opportunities and for the fear of judgement. This book is all about queer, disabled teen rage and I wanted it all. This is the horror I want. I want gory, raw, and queer as hell violent horror stories that are about revenge and vengeance and rage. This book is going to sit with me for a long time and is definitely something I will need to reread and annotate going forward.

If you can handle the gore and body horror, I think you absolutely need to pick this up.

- Trans boy main character
- Autistic and gay love interest
- Queer-found family
- Body-horror
- Religious trauma

Hell Followed With Us is a dark and intense science fiction story about love, hatred, betrayal, and revenge. But most of all, it's about surviving queer religious trauma.

The protagonist, Benji, is a trans boy who was forced into an Evangelical Christian cult by his mom when he was a child. The “Angels” spread their hatred around the world and caused the apocalypse. They intend to earn their passage into heaven by murdering all non-believers, and Benji is the final weapon for their cause. Benji and his father attempt to escape the Angels, but not before he’s infected with a deadly bioweapon that has the power to annihilate the rest of humanity.

The story began during Benji’s escape after his father was murdered by the Angels. This bloody beginning was riddled with confusion, grief, and gore that captured the essence of what Benji was experiencing in those moments. During the chaos, Benji ran into a ragtag team of queer teens fighting back against the Angels. He jumped on the opportunity to escape the cult and agreed to help them fight the Angels.

One of the things I loved most about this story was how many times the characters fell apart and then helped each other pull themselves back together. It showed a really beautiful side of humanity that I wasn’t used to seeing in post-apocalyptic stories. Even in the midst of all the horror, these queer teens came together and had each other's back. The obvious affection they had for each other made the story more bearable and just a bit less dark.

"There's some kind of awful, enduring myth: that after the end of the world, people will turn on one another. That people will become hateful and selfish. That's just not true. It's never been true."
- Andrew Joseph White, Hell Followed with Us

Although the story seemed anti-Christianity at first glance, the author managed to walk a delicate line between criticizing the bigotry and hatred within white Christianity and criticizing people’s faith. Throughout the story, Benji struggled with understanding the difference between his own beliefs and what he was brainwashed to believe by the Angels. There was one especially touching scene when Benji asks one of the other teens at the ALC about her Christian upbringing. She opened up about still wanting to believe in God, but not wanting the same religion as the murderous Angels. The conversation gave Benji peace about his conflicting thoughts and allowed him to start separating his beliefs from the Angels. I really appreciated the delicate approach the author took to this topic. It was clear to me that the author had experience with having hatred-infused religious teachings forced on him as well as experience deconstructing those beliefs.

Additionally, the narration included Bible verses and quotes from religious commentaries at the beginning of each chapter and sprinkled throughout the text. I’ve always enjoyed books that include quotes at the beginning of chapters, and Hell Followed With Us was no exception. The excerpts provided a great introduction to the themes in each of the chapters, and the Bible verses included in Benji’s thought processes conveyed his conflict between what he was taught and what he believed. I especially liked how the addition of Bible verses portrayed how engulfed Benji's thoughts were in the religious teachings he grew up with even after he escaped the Angels.

I loved that so much of the conflict in Hell Followed with Us was internal. While Benji was fighting monsters and Angels, he also struggled to understand his beliefs and cope with PTSD from his time with the Angels. His conflicted thoughts were also reflected in the love triangle he had with Nick, the leader of the ALC, and Theo, his childhood love and fiance. Theo was familiar and always accepted Benji’s identity as a trans boy, but he also hurt Benji. Nick was gorgeous and offered Benji shelter when he needed it most, but Benji wasn’t quite ready to give up on Theo. While love triangles aren’t usually my thing, I actually loved how this one fit into the overall themes of the story. It emphasized Benji’s internal conflict between what he was told to believe and his truth.

“There is no love. Just breaking and building”
- Andrew Joseph White, Hell Followed with Us

I was also impressed by how well the author captured how sinister hatred and violence are when they're hidden behind a veneer of smiles and false proclamations of love. No amount of gruesome body horror could compete with the discomfort I felt when Benji was with the Angels. I could actually feel all the muscles in my body tense up whenever Benji's mom entered a scene! EEEK!!! The author’s rendering of all the hypocrisy and fear tainting the Angel’s propaganda was right on the nose. It was a perfect representation of what happens when a group of people tries to take God’s judgment into their own hands. Their arrogance and hatred turned their faith into something dark and twisted.

Overall, Hell Followed with Us is a dark and brutal story about a trans boy who survives a religious cult and goes back for revenge. I definitely recommend checking this out if you enjoy post-apocalyptic stories with the addition of queer-found family and lots of body horror.

***I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion of the work.

This was quite the gut punch of a book, covering both religious fanaticism, an apocalypse, and vivid queer characters. I will recommend it but only sparingly.

This book was SO cool. And that cover is freaking to die for. I loved this book. I freaking loved this book. It was so well-written. The concept was fierce. The execution was so well-done--if it was a steak, I would hate it; that's how well-done it was. I need more book like that. There deserves to be more books like this, and Andrew deserves the world and every accolade for his work in this book. Truly magnificent.

I’m not usually the biggest fan of apocalypse stories (it’s my own fault for reading too many dystopian novels in middle school and wearing myself out), but I’m very glad I made an exception for Hell Followed with Us.

Hell Followed with Us is so, so dark, and Andrew Joseph White writes this darkness so, so well—which is all the more impressive considering this novel is a debut. Obviously, this book is not for the faint of heart; as the content warnings indicate, the main and side characters all experience a fair share of trauma, and the pages are filled to the brim with body horror. But what I love is that the body horror isn’t just there to be shocking and gruesome. White connects characters’ literal monstrousness to their feelings of monstrousness. The most obvious example is Benji, a trans teen boy who was raised (and infected with a bioweapon that will supposedly bring about humanity’s salvation!) by a fundamentalist doomsday Christian cult. At first, Benji runs from his monstrousness, but he later uses it to rebel against his religious trauma and years of limited self-expression and self-agency. The transformation was physically and emotionally evocative. In interacting with Benji, other side characters undergo similar transformations, which made them all compelling—though, of course, Benji stole the show.

However, I did wish for more extensive worldbuilding. I could easily visualize the environment where Benji grew up, but I was less clear about what the rest of the world looks like post-apocalypse. The pacing was also perfect up until the very, very end. I would have liked another chapter or two about the aftermath of the climax since the book ends rather abruptly.

Hell Followed with Us is angry and horrific but also tender and hopeful—a must-read for anyone with a strong stomach and a fondness for strong-willed characters.

The descriptions conjure such beautifully vivid imagery.

The characters felt real and well developed and I think many people will find them relatable.

The climax felt a bit rushed and some of the plot felt a bit too convenient, but overall a really enjoyable read.

4/5

the writing was stunning, the cast of characters was so diverse. the body horror and gore were impeccable. (although i feel like the word "gore" was a little overused, but what can you do, right?)

this was just so beautifully gruesome. i loved the metapors for the trans identity and the deep discussion of religious trauma. speaking of which, i kind of imagine the graces as biblically-accurate angels. 🤔

will definitely be checking out whatever the author comes out next! 😔🤘