I have loved everything that Andrew Joseph White has previously published in the YA space, so I was especially excited to see Andrew's first novel for adults coming out. And this novel did not disappoint! It was a super-fast read, as I did not want to put it down. Lots of trigger warnings at the beginning of the book, so folks who have certain triggers may want to tread lightly, but I found this to be a 5-star book and will recommend it to everyone I know.

I picked this book up for the promise of Appalachian centric horror and sci-fi. It delivered, but not in the way I was expecting. This is a really difficult, disturbing read, but from a horror perspective, it’s good and provides a poignant perspective and representation especially in a time where rights and freedoms are actively stripped away and individuals are criminalized for their identities. The themes are hard, visceral, predatory, real horror within humanity, cultivated under the sci-fi cult elements. Despite its dystopian sci-fi premise after an infiltration of alien “worm” hives and their murderous cults, the horror is centered on a suicidal trans autistic teen, Crane, who is forced to carry a baby he doesn’t want. Crane is mute (not non-verbal, he *chooses* not to talk) and so you spend a lot of time in his head. You see through his perspective what he experiences from the world for being autistic and the callousness and cruelty with which he is treated, especially by those he’s “close” with. He is also masochistic, and enjoys being twisted up in a graphic S&M relationship that is more abusive, toxic, and manipulative than an actual safe & respectful S&M relationship. There are persistent thoughts of self-harm, suicide and details flashbacks to suicide attempts, as well as constant thoughts of wanting to end the pregnancy (chapters of this). The dread and horror escalates in the fall out, in what it means to have community, how much you are really willing to risk for your community, being forced to lose/sacrifice it and sinking into isolation, imprisonment. This loss of autonomy and subsequent isolation, essentially forced detransition, and the resulting unrelenting desire for suicide, the struggle to operate in a world not meant for or supportive of him in many ways (being trans, being autistic) is really the core horror in You Weren’t Meant To Be Human.

The themes were challenging, graphic, burrowing under your skin and crawling around much in the same way the hive bugs did. it peels open the very real horror of teen and young adult trauma and suicide within the LGBTQIA+ community, and weaves in the additional intersectional layer of the experience of a person with a developmental disability. It was tough read for me. It felt a bit like a shotgun blast to the face with the number of difficult themes pushed through 238pages. I put it down several times before picking it back up and I barely got through it, but it achieves its intention within the horror/sci fi landscape.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for the ARC of You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White in exchange for my honest review.

This is an immaculately crafted, strange strange story, It will definitely not be for everyone, and will definitely piss a lot of people off. And I think that's fantastic.

GOOD FUCKING GOD.

This book is disturbing and gruesome and sick and NECESSARY. “Zee, why are you using all caps no need to yell” YES THERE IS I AM CRYING SCREAMING PULLING MY HAIR OUT over this book.

Crane is a trans man who is mute, and is in an abusive relationship with a man and a cult of sentient…bugs...who force him against his will, wishes, everything to have a baby. But at the same time this book is a deep look into gender dysphoria.

So that’s the plot, now my analysis. I am a cis woman with kids that I planned for and wanted. But in reading this book I saw, I FELT how terrible a pregnancy forced upon you could feel. I knew Andrew Joseph White was an excellent writer so I was thrilled to be able to get a copy of his first adult book, but I never could have believed it would be this good. A good book makes you think and feel things you never could from your own point of view. It is the only way to truly walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Books like this are necessary to our humanity. They help us truly empathize with people with different life experiences from our own. I am in awe of this book, this author, and his ability to make me experience something so wholly different from my own path.

And that ENDING!!! I am simultaneously horrified but also I understand it, and am shocked that I could receive such a deep understanding of another human…I am having a hard time putting it into words. But definitely READ THE DAMN TRIGGERS!

Absolutely disgusting, in the best of ways. YOU WEREN'T MEANT TO BE HUMAN is Andrew Joseph White's first foray into adult fiction, and boy does he knock it out of the park.

Visceral, in every sense of the word. I can’t remember the last time a book made me angry and disgusted and still not able to get enough.

This was a dark, wild ride. I would probably read this again to understand what happened. How much of this is literal hive, literal bugs, and how much is a personal, internal feeling of bugs and external forces driving choices. It reminds me quite a bit of Metamorphosis, actually. It's not easy to follow, but it's fascinating and one that you could study in all its complexity.

This book was absolutely not for me but it will absolutely be for somebody. I think I went into this expecting it to be something it isn't, which is a me thing. I expected Horror, but I didn't expect bleak to the point of hopeless. I expected messy, but I didn't expect a lack of nuance. I expected to be shocked, but I didn't expect to squint at my iPad and wonder what the point was. In the end, this is a grim, nasty, obviously personal story about a transgender man who doesn't bend to the will of the power at hand. It has a distinct voice, and Crane is easy to love, but I think this is almost a bit too over-the-top for me to consider good. Granted, what's not for me will be for someone else. I think the content note at the beginning of the book is a bit too modest. And while I do think this is an interesting story, I'm not sure if it's actually a good book. It's gritty, polarizing, blatant, buggy, brutal, ostracizing, and morbid. I wouldn't call it political, despite the author marketing it as such, and I personally don't think the author should be publishing this under the same name as his Young Adult titles.

This wasn't for me. But it's for someone. As a Horror title? As a squick title? As a "oh, you really went there, huh" title? You might enjoy it.

EDIT: After sitting with my thoughts about this book and reading other reviews, I did come back to edit my star rating. I personally just did not vibe with this or find it all that thought provoking or generally appealing. It's ultra-personal on a level that should not have been published without refinement and deep-dives into the meaning of the overall story, in my opinion. As a transmasc person myself, I just kinda sighed at this book and said to myself "this should've been kept in Andrew's diary".

Uff. I don’t think I was prepared for just how gruesome this book is. I loved Hell Followed With Us and was expecting a similar vibe from this, but White made the jump into adult horror from YA and held absolutely nothing back. If you read this, I recommend an empty stomach.

I’ve never read an ending that was simultaneously so viscerally horrible and yet hopeful. I think the mental images are permanently scarred on the insides of my eyelids. Part of me would like to forget that I ever read this. It’s gross and heavy and I do not feel good having read it... but I think that’s exactly what you’re meant to feel.

I cannot bring myself to give this five stars because of the mental state it’s left me in and the fact that there wasn’t ever a point where I enjoyed what I was reading; however, I do think White accomplished exactly what he intended, so in being unapologetically and perfectly what it is, it may deserve that fifth star.

The horror aspects of this were HORRORING which is exactly what I was wanting and I loved them. The autistic and trans representation and exploration is so needed rn as well.

However, this fell flat for me in many places. I think worldbuilding could’ve been explored more, and many times I felt the main character was a little flat—maybe that’s the point though?

Overall, 3 stars. I enjoyed a lot of aspects of this but ultimately isn’t a fav! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC ✨

I don’t even know where to begin on a review for this one. Saying I “enjoyed” it doesn’t feel appropriate, but it is definitely going to stick with me for a long time. So incredibly timely, visceral, and painfully well-written! I will eagerly read anything Andrew Joseph White writes.

Thank you Net Galley for this ARC! Now, this isn’t the typical type of book I gravitate towards but I thought the synopsis was intriguing. It’s a dark, haunting, freaky and fascinating horror story. Please read the trigger warnings before picking it up. Perhaps not the perfect book for me but I can definitely see this book blowing up and finding its people.

When I saw the bright bold letters "Alien meets Midsommar" I was intrigued. Alien is one of the most monumental achievements in both sci-fi and horror, and not just for creating the Xenomorph even though that is pretty cool. Not many people realize it's about the horrors of forced pregnancy ,the invasion of bodily autonomy by a hostile force, and the trauma surrounding it.

From then on we've had so many horror stories about unwanted and forced pregnancy correlating with themes of identity lost and body invasion. And you know what? It's rightfully so because the act of pregnancy itself seems horrific and so sugarcoated that we really don't have deep honest discussions about it. I love horror as a genre because it takes these everyday scenarios and shines a bit more truth on the matter.

After I finished this book though, I think we have a worthy successor to Alien.

This book really packs a punch in terms of body horror and tying in current political events (specifically the fall of Roe V Wade and the rise of redpill ideology). It felt hopeless and bleak but the writing was so captivating that I couldn't put it down. The descriptions of body horror are amazing and I refuse to believe that this is the author's first "adult" book. And those last 2 sections of the book? Won't be forgetting for a while.

Woah. I need to sit and meditate on this. But also I don't. This was so heavy, especially the commentary woven in this. This is the type of book that makes you read reviews.

Oh man oh man. I read this because I wanted to branch out and read something really different. And boy did I. I’m… shooketh might be the best word I can use to describe this book. At no point did I know how Crane would react to a certain situation and I’m happy my brain does not think that way. This book is also extremely scary because it shows how messed up our world can get under certain circumstances.
Overall thoughts on the books: disturbing and horrifying.

As a huge fan of AJW, I am thrilled to be reviewing his newest release.

While I found all of AJW's prior works particularly horrifying, this novel shows a real sense of creative freedom in the adult age range. It was very challenging to read at times due to Crane's situation and mental and physical struggles, but this is why I value AJW's voice in publishing. Horror as a genre should be thought-provoking and move us in some way, even if it's a flinch backward, because it shows us what we have to be scared of.

I appreciated, as always, AJW writing a contained story (not that horror often does series) because I felt like it contributed greatly to the claustrophobic nature of Crane's situation and the time-sensitivity of a pregnancy. Crane choosing not to speak also greatly delivers on the feeling of insularity as well as provides much-needed neurodivergent representation, which AJW never misses on.

I knew going in that AJW would be focusing on, and prioritizing themes of reproductive abuse and he definitely delivered on this goal. Overall, I felt like some of the supernatural or otherworldly elements could've used a bit more fleshing-out in terms of explanation, but I do think the ambiguity of the "hive" worked despite some confusion.

This book has one of the most jaw-dropping endings I've ever read and overall I can't wait to continue to support this author!

As a big AJW fan, I was extremely excited for his adult debut. Although this doesn't claim the throne for my favorite of his works, I was certainly impressed. This book is NOT for everyone, and I would strongly encourage readers to check trigger warnings before going into this one. However, if you are prepared to deal with the heavy content, it's an enthralling and evocative novel. Though some of the content is viscerally upsetting, it never feels gratuitous. AJW continues to be a favorite author for me largely because of how well he represents the experience of mentally ill, trans-masculine autistic characters. I particularly enjoyed the nuanced portrayal of Crane as a non-speaking character. I expect that this is a book that will prompt a lot of discussion amongst readers. I'm still thinking about some scenes weeks after finishing.

Pregnancy horror is really the worst for me because I already find the details of even healthy, wanted pregnancies to make me squeamish. But on top of that, White expertly brought out the unique horror of a forced pregnancy with a trans man — the sickening loss of bodily autonomy, the elements of forced detransition, the mix of dysphoria and body horror Crane feels just from the pregnancy inevitably progressing down its natural course. Despite the sci-fi/fantasy elements, the main horror is all grounded firmly in reality. Crane is trapped in an abusive relationship that is facilitated by his community (read: cult). He is betrayed, manipulated, and violated by the people he thought were his salvation, and isolated from anyone who would help him. He's forced to carry this pregnancy to term even as he's unraveling and spiraling into his violent intrusive thoughts and thoughts of suicide. All because the hive wants the child for its own purposes and sees Crane as nothing but a body to use.
It was unsettling to see someone already so unwell, pushed and pushed to the absolute extremes of what he can handle, exposing all the raw, disturbing corners of his mind. And it was more sickening to watch how the people around him saw all this happening to him and didn't just turn away, but went ahead and helped keep him in the situation that was killing him.
The ending pulled off a shocking, though not entirely unexpected, escalation to the horror with Crane's actions after the birth of his child. I was unsure near the end how the story would deal with following through on its premise and forcing Crane to give birth, what would happen to the child, and could it fit the tone and themes without going overboard? And it certainly delivered on that end. It was awful and pulled no punches, but gave enough insight into Crane's mind in that moment that, through his jumbled thoughts, he had a sort of twisted but understandable logic behind his actions.
There were other parts of the ending that came and went too quickly for my tastes. Crane's parents, for example, felt tossed in with how briefly they made an appearance. There were some threads that needed to be tied up a little more to be satisfying.

This book was…a lot. Fast paced. Eye opening. Gruesome. It was such a hard read, but absolutely worth it. I anticipated it being brutal and extremely gory—I am familiar with Andrew’s prior work and have enjoyed all of it—but the thing that impressed me the most was Crane’s contradictions. So relatable, and so very human.

If you like horror with lots of triggers (A LOT OF TRIGGERS) threaded through with whip-smart social commentary, you’ll probably love this book.

Thank you, Netgalley and the publisher, for an early copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

Thank you to Saga Press for sending me an early copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

How delightfully horrid...

This book is such a poignant commentary on today's society and misogyny and transphobia. It really keeps you thinking, in both the classic horror way and the existential crisis way. It makes you think about the things that get under your skin...literally. And it makes you think about the ways that society has built you...literally.

I don't know how to talk about this book without giving away too much. Go into it blind, you'll be horribly delighted to do so.

(please check trigger warnings first)