3.5 stars

that ending was crazy, but so was the whole story leading up to that.

i wish we would’ve gotten more info about the hive and what it was exactly, also i would’ve preferred some other characters were mentioned in the ending as well.

thank you netgalley for the e-arc!

I don’t know where to start. There is a scene in the very early pages of the book that isn’t particularly graphic but has such emotional weight that I had to put the book down for a moment to remind myself to breathe. This novel is unapologetic and brutal, but it never for a moment feels exploitative or like it is pushing boundaries or being shocking just for the sake of it. As you get lost in this story you get the clear sensation that if there were any other way this story could be told, it would have been. This actually makes the story more visceral, more claustrophobic, more intimate. There is a truth here, and it is painful and dirty and violent and, yet, undeniable. Reading AJW’s young-adult novels forced me to reconsider what exactly “young-adult” means and contains, and here he defiantly displays that the horror and violence and dysregulation in those is, in fact, tame compared to the emotional devastation he is capable of.

I think AJW’s characters are great, as usual. The ancillary characters are all described and experienced from the perspective of the main character, and so none of them are as fleshed out as he is, but they still feel like genuine people. Given the story and the setting, they all make sense in this environment, and I can picture them and recognize them. The main character, Crane, is incredible. So much of his life is an enigma even to himself, but there is an emotional honesty to his character that is sometimes painful to witness. He is complicated and committed and I loved every broken part of him. Everything about this situation—the desperation, the loneliness, the isolation—they all add up to subtle but impressive world-building. What I think I appreciated the most is the lack of detail about the swarm, how they came to be and infiltrate people’s lives. There is a version of this story where you find out the swarm is a metaphor, the many buzzing faces of a crime syndicate that exploits the marginalized and downtrodden, and nothing about the story has to change. I like that. There is another version of this story where the swarm is actually just the status quo, the allure of a performative cishet-normativity that can convince us to act against our best interest in exchange for things feeling easier, at least on the surface. I choose to believe the literal description of this alien(?) swarm, but I am impressed by the ambiguity. Because the swarm is a disease, it feasts on our hopes and dreams, it infects us and offers chains and calls them mercies.

The writing in this novel feels deeply personal. It pulls the reader in and makes you complicit, holding a hand over your mouth not just to muffle your screams but because sometimes the world is easier to deal with when it starts to go grey around the edges. In all of that, there is a poetry to it, a sense of direction and a confidence in the prose that convinces the reader that this story is going exactly where it needs to, to its only possible outcome. The pacing is smart, building in intensity as the due date approaches, with a comfortable balance of action and silence. The story is so isolated and claustrophobic that there isn’t a lot of narrative action, but there is always a sense of movement, an inevitability, which highlights the uniquely internal journey that is the messy heart of the story. It didn’t end the way I expected it to, but as I turned the last page it was clear that it was exactly what it needed to be. I haven’t had such a confusing, competing set of simultaneous emotions in a while, and the juxtaposition of a gloomy cloud cover and a piercing, snow-blind brilliance was pitch perfect.

This story is about a lot of things. Knowing yourself, and your worth and value, is one of them. But being able to discover that and affirm it when it feels like the whole world is against you is another, and there is an uncompromising compassion for that struggle, too. Ideas of power and control, identity and presentation, protection and comfort, acceptance and support, these all have a role to play in this story. Yet nothing about this story feels like it is force-feeding you anything, nor lecturing nor sermonizing. There is an unflinching dignity that underlies this story, and for all of the themes or ideas it is playing with it ultimately stands on its own as representing nothing but itself. It might turn your stomach, but it won’t let you look away.

I want to thank the author, the publisher Saga Press, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I didn’t like the representation of the autistic character. I liked the dark fantasy appeal to the plot. The Hive for me was seen as a controlling part of the story, the worms were much more the story than the hosts. I was getting The kid who ate fried worms turned into horror story. It was dark, compelling, funny and mysterious.

You Weren't Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White
Huge thank you to@sagapressbooks @ajwhiteauthor, and @netgalley for allowing me to read this one before its release date on September 29, 2025.

Okay, this book is wild. It's horrific in the most incredible way. Definitely check out the trigger list as it can be quite difficult to read.

Not only is it a horror story in the sense that alien worms have taken over. But we also see the very real horror of a trans man being denied access to an abortion he very much wants.

Our main character deals with significant trauma. While he discusses some of it, we're definitely left in the dark for the majority of it. I would have loved to have more information regarding some of these details, but I also feel like that's part of what makes the story so intriguing.

I would also love to pick the authors brain because the ending was absolutely wild. Did not see it coming. Mind blown.

This novel was a gut-punch in the best way. With vivid and, a good chunk of the time, grotesque writing, I found myself either reading the book or thinking about reading the book when I couldn’t.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human follows Crane, an autistic trans man who prefers never speaking, as he is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term by the worms he gave himself to when he was 18 and suicidal.

At no point could I guess what was going to happen next, and I loved every second of it. I’ll admit I didn’t love every second of living in Crane’s head, but his narration was amazing. I felt everything he felt, I had the same visceral reactions to things that he did, all of the things that a great narration makes you experience. I even found myself fond of Jess and Stagger, who were fellow worm victims at their core.

The relationships throughout the novel were so complex, and I could never parse them out fully (which I LOVED). I never knew where a character stood with Crane or where Crane stood with said character. It kept me on my toes for every interaction.

I wish I knew more about the worms’ origin but it was also so integral to the story for them to be a creepy, wriggling mass that you don’t understand fully. I’ll be thinking about this book and the characters for the foreseeable future.

Absolutely amazing book, I’m so honored and grateful to read it. Thank you to Saga Press Books and Andrew Joseph White for the e-ARC!

I really wanted to like You Weren’t Meant to Be Human because the concept sounded so unique, and I’ve heard good things about Andrew Joseph White’s other books. But this one just didn’t work for me. The story was confusing at times, and the writing felt heavy and hard to follow. There were a lot of intense and graphic scenes that felt more shocking than meaningful, and it was hard to stay connected to the main character or the plot.
I get that the book was trying to explore deep topics about identity and control, but it didn’t come together in a way that made me care. It had some interesting ideas, but overall it was too much, and not in a good way.

The premise of this book sounded incredibly promising, but unfortunately, it fell flat for me. While I genuinely disliked the story, I also recognize that I may not be the intended audience.

I didn’t connect with any of the characters—not a dealbreaker for me normally—but in this case, they felt one-dimensional and often made choices that seemed driven purely by the needs of the plot rather than any internal logic or development. The world-building, particularly around the worms and flies, was lacking. Readers are expected to take it all at face value without much explanation or depth.

One aspect I truly appreciated was the trans representation, which was handled well and stands out as the book’s most redeeming quality.

Given such a unique and intriguing concept, I was hoping for a more compelling execution. The story flirted with wild, unsettling elements but never fully committed—except for one memorable scene near the end.

as a huge fan of aj white, this must be up there with THE SPIRIT BARES ITS TEETH for me. everything about this is just...phenomenal & weird. but so, so fucking touching. as a non-binary person who fears pregnancy to the life of me, there wasn't one singular passage about the threat of crane's pregnancy, his fears, and his sorrows that didn't touch something raw inside of me too.

it made the damn worms & the body horror that accompanies it look like a fucking cake walk.

i'm goddamn speechless. phenomenal.

Please make sure to check all the content warnings that I list on my Storygraph. This book is graphic and explicit and touches on many topics and themes that are not meant to be read easily.

A deeply grim, depressing and tragic read from start to finish. Andrew Joseph White’s first try at an adult horror and I feel like that it works in so many ways. Unlike his YA books that often present a light, sometimes dimmer than others, for the readers to search, this book doesn’t provide that. And it’s intentional and it’s painful and it’s masterful.

We are presented with a deeply flawed and struggling character in our Crane, our protagonist. A character who is so far from perfect but so real and someone who is trying to survive. And survival isn’t perfect, it isn’t beautiful. It isn’t tied up with a little ribbon and presented to you. The rest of the cast are well written and boy, do I have a lot of emotions and feelings towards Levi in particular.

The ending was equally as grim and painful as the rest of the book. I understand that being the intention and it's very reminiscent of the way Hereditary and Midsommer were meant to make you feel. This ache that drops from your chest to your stomach knowing that maybe things will get better, but knowing that we won't see it happen and knowing that the road to "better" is still a long ways away. I think this will work for many readers, but as someone who isn't a fan of either movie mentioned above, it left me just feeling depressed.

I do however plan to sit on the ending a bit longer and give it time to process, and maybe this rating will go up to 5. But for now, despite having be enthralled y 96% of the story, the last bit left me wanting more catharsis.

I’m giving this book five stars because I believe it accomplishes what it set out to do. I can’t truthfully say that I enjoyed it per se, but I don’t think it’s the kind of book that is meant to be enjoyable. It is well written and vividly conveys Crane’s feelings toward his unwanted pregnancy as a trans man, and it felt meaningful to have an autistic and trans main character. If I have any complaint, it’s that the overall tone of the story is so incredibly bleak that I found it difficult to get emotionally invested in any of the characters, but again, I believe this is more or less what was intended, and I don’t consider it a fault of the book or the author, just my own personal threshold for this sort of thing.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

I've read all three of AJW's young adult novels, and I adored them all for different reasons. I was stoked to read this book because the concept of pregnancy and childbirth as body horror is FASCINATING to me. One of the main reasons why I choose to remain childfree is because I am terrified of being pregnant. The idea of my body growing a human and then pushing it out scares the shit out of me. Needless to say, I was very excited to read this.

I'm hesitant to really give it a review because this story feels so personal to the author, and I hate having to ascribe a star rating to it. It made my skin crawl, my stomach turn, and I found myself saying MAKE IT STOP a few times, particularly at the end (and I mean this in the best way). I do wish that we learned more about the origins of the Hive. The West Virginia hive is the one Crane and co. are part of, and the Tennessee Hive gets mentioned, but are there other regions/states outside of Appalachia that have them? Did they start springing up after certain Supreme Court decisions that the book alludes to? I wanted to know every little thing about the Hive, and I feel like I need to steel myself to read the book again because there are definitely things I missed.

All in all, this book is gross and harrowing and cathartic, and it may shock you. It didn't resonate with me as much as the author's YA novels, but that's okay. I'm still really glad I got the chance to read it.

(Finally - I strongly recommend that every person who reads this book, even if they're a horror fan, to read the trigger warnings. Believe me, you will want to be prepared for what's within these pages).

This was raw, visceral, disgusting, and so so good.
But also a LOT.

Content warnings include: violence, murder, gore, questionable consent and rape, graphic birth, stillbirth and abortion, suicidal ideation, transphobia, ableism, mutilation of corpses, infanticide, cannibalism, self-harm and self-mutilation, intrusive thoughts; Mentions of: bestiality, imprisonment.
There are general warnings at the beginning of the book, and more details/context to the warnings have been posted by the author .

While the book is described as pregnancy horror during an alien invasion, and that is technically correct, at its core it is a story about abuse. All forms of it: domestic, self-inflicted, sexual, as well as within a community in a culture of manipulation.

The whole alien invasion aspect was very secondary. It could have easily been switched out with a "normal" (as in, human) cult, with very few changes. I still loved all the alien stuff, as it added an extra element that was both disgusting as well as mysterious. I wish there had been a bit more details/world-building around the aliens and their purpose, but the story is focussed on Crane and his perspective and story, and to Crane, the aliens' purpose on earth is not important at all.

Crane is a great protagonist. He is autistic and choses not to talk, and I really enjoyed reading about how he communicates with the people around him without ever speaking a single word. I'm not sure I really read about a character like that before, at least not as a book's protagonist.

Crane is intensely self-destructive. He is clearly struggling with mental health issues, idealizes suicide and self-mutilation, has constant intrusive thoughts and sexual fantasies that disgust him as much as they arouse him. Being in his mind and reading about his thoughts can be shocking, but I also found him to be intensely relateable. The intersection of neurodivergency, mental health and being trans is one I experience as well, and even if the details are different for me, the root causes of why he has these specific struggles and thoughts... yeah, I feel that.

In the afterword, the author talks about how personal a lot about Crane is to him, and I definitely felt that while reading. It adds a vulnerable quality to the book that, despite or maybe because of it's rawness, really made me connect to it.

I loved so much about this book and devoured it in a very short time, and whenever I wasn't reading, I was thinking about it. And after I finished, fuck, I didn't know what to do with myself for a long time, and I think I am still processing a lot of it.

The ending was both satisfying and shocking. A lot of what I was anticipating and hoping to happen came true, but there were also some curveballs, some of them so severe that my head is still spinning.
I do like where the story ends, and I think it's a well chosen point to end it. But it's also just open enough to give me so much anxiety about what might happen beyond that point, with some details that did not quite wrap up neatly enough that I am struggling with letting go. While that sucks for me personally, as it feels like a fist in my stomach that I cannot get rid of, that arguably is the most successful ending a horror book can achieve.

Overall this is a stunning, shocking horror story about abuse, focussing on pregnancy horror through an trans and autistic lense, with a cool alien backdrop and a visceral writing style that is, frankly, off-putting at times. I could not put it down, and if you can stomach the content warnings, I highly recommend this!

This story was both disturbing and visceral, which I think made for an engaging horror novel. It had a well-thought out story that kept me in suspense of how it would end and strong, three-dimensional characters who felt alive, and I even strongly hated a few of them! I couldn't stop reading and devoured it in only a few days.

Thank you Saga press for the advanced copy to review!

This is probably the most disgusting horror book I’ve ever read and I mean that as a total compliment. So many times while I was reading I said out loud “ugh!!!” Or “ew!!!” Or “that’s so gross!!”

Crane is just doing his best to survive. I really don’t want to give any spoilers at all, but wow was the social commentary in this book on point. Bodily autonomy. Protecting yourself. Found family. Doing what you have to in order to survive.

That ending was absolutely wild and diabolical!!!!

Fully recommend.

A mute, autistic, trans young trans man, Crane (Sophie dead name) finds himself right smack in the middle of an alien parasitic alien species invasion in rural West Virginia. This is a crazy fast paced and gory ride. Check trigger warnings because this one starts out the gate with the beautifully morbid and macabre craziness. Triggers: cannibalism, pregnancy/childbirth as body horror, child death, transphobia, sexual violence, domestic abuse, abortion, murder, vivid body gore, and graphic violence.

Its hard to say much without spoilers but picture a lost and mentally unhealthy teen who is struggling with their identity and looking for acceptance. They find what appears to be a cult (the hive) that accepts them for who they are. Makes them feel accepted and wanted. Then you find out that the hive is really an alien parasite staging an invasion and the members are insanely brutal.

Overall this was an insane read with so many WTH just happened moments but I enjoyed every minute of it. As I already said just make sure you check the triggers and the week need not apply.

Official Review

4.2 / 5 Stars

I normally break my ARC reviews down to plot, characters, setting and writing but I can’t do that with this book I need to just straight up talk about it. This book is disturbing, I will put that frankly, there were many times in this book that I needed to take a moment and breath. That being said, PLEASE please please look at the trigger warnings before reading.

Now, this book was SO well written the way that Andrew Joseph White wrote about the unwanted pregnancy, autism, identity, toxic relationships (both intimate and friendship) is just astonishing. The book felt raw, it felt real, it made my skin crawl and my heart ache. I was just put through the ringer with my emotions.

We watch the main character Crane, a trans male, fall pregnant to Levi, the toxic “boyfriend” and the Hive wants Crane to have the child. During this time we watch Crane absolutely spiral into the thralls of an identity crisis and need for self preservation. My heart was so broken for Crane and watching him reach out to those who support him but be pulled back into his toxic relationships. It just ripped my heart out.

This is truly a fantastic novel that speaks to the topics of reproductive and ab**tion care becoming impossible for some to obtain, it speaks to living in abusive relationships, it speaks to the importance of self identity and just so much more. Having these kinds of topics covered in a horror novel just really amplified them, it made them really stick with me.

Read this book, it makes you think.

"You were not meant to be human" is a visceral read, a very personal work for its author, and will resonate with a lot of people who are made to feel "other".

However, as a book, it is pretty slow, and it feels like most of the actual plot is jammed at the last third of the book, including a deus ex machina encounter that opens a can of worms (pun not intended!) and then doesn't get to close it before an abrupt ending. Overall, it feels rushed and would have probably benefited from another round of editing.

The misterious worms announced in the summary act no different than your off-the-mill Christian cult. It would have been more powerful to go full realism a la "The Handmaiden's Tale", and also develop the secondary characters to not be easily classified as pure good or pure evil (fortunatelly there's a couple of good exceptions to that).

Heed the trigger warnings! Most of the book did not feel much worse than the author's previous YA works, but when it goes worse, it goes really WORSE.

I feel a bit bad about this, because it is not the author's fault, but in the years this book was in development, things have gotten so bad in real life when it comes to its central topic of body autonomy that the dystopian future pictured is basically a normal day now, so it was difficult for me to feel sympathy for a fictional character going through their personal hell while being bombarded with far worse things happening to actual real people.

I recommend this book if you are a fan of the author, if you like dark gorey stories, and if you want to read about body autonomy, identity and/or cults.

There’s so many queer/trans specific nuances that are so beautiful and it’s really cool to experience this level of representation in a book. I don’t know if cis/het folks will get it- I love that.

It’s so obvious how much of Andrew’s heart and souls has been put into this book. There is so much vulnerability. The afterward is so important to read. The ending leaves you feeling raw so it’s nice to hear directly from Andrew in that moment.

Goddamn. This would be such a hard read for people don’t get it. Like don’t know what it’s like to have intrusive thoughts and self destructive feelings. Andrew wrote so much of what I would never have admitted thinking or experiencing. I def thought that level of fucked it was only my own.

I can’t word it with brevity but if you don’t end up liking this book, it’s simply because it’s not for you. Andrew is an amazing author and this book is incredible. It’s rough, gross, raw and heavy. I love it. 🖤

The way Crane experiences dysphoria and desirability is so important. Also Stagger is probably my favorite character, next to Crane. He’s just a little worm boy.

🪱

I... honestly don't know how to feel about this book. I really, really wanted to like and recommend it, but, despite being very impressed with it in certain ways, am struggling a little. On the one hand, I devoured the entire thing non-stop in four hours. I thought it was well-written and engaging, that it was a phenomenal character study of Crane in particular, and that it was a horrifying read in any number of ways (appropriate for a horror novel). It also engaged with various issues in a thoughtful way. I thought its handling of a particular kind of abuse re: Levi's treatment of Crane and the toll that takes on Crane was well-done, and it also got far deeper inside the characters' heads than almost any book I've read (which I didn't entirely like--more on that later), but which is still an accomplishment. All this is why I've rated it four stars, rather than three.

With that said, I felt very uncomfortable with some of the content (re: disturbing sexual fantasies) on screen. I might just be prudish and am also not a horror expert (though I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Agustina Bazterrica, and Grady Hendrix), but a lot of that content just felt unnecessary and I honestly also felt as though it was being tied to Crane's trans identity in ways I wasn't entirely comfortable with (ie, almost as though the book were implying trans people are mentally ill/have sexually tinged suicidal fantasies simply because they're trans). Yes, many trans people have mental health issues--but those issues come from all sorts of external strain, be that non-accepting parents, peer cruelty, etc... yet in Crane's case, his vivid fantasies and desires (particularly relating to arson) seemed to be chalked up to mere dysphoria, which I felt as an actual force in his childhood wasn't evoked clearly enough on screen (though I may have missed things)--he honestly seemed like a fairly happy, popular high school kid, all of which was maybe a facade to cover up severe mental health issues... but, to be clear, I didn't get a sense that an inner conviction that he was a guy and an accompanying anguish at the refusal of society to recognize that was one of those issues. In fact, it only seemed to come up after he escaped to the hive. Crane stated multiple times that he hadn't gone through very much, which, to be honest, seemed very true. His parents were literally incredible, and it drove me crazy that he didn't seem to think about how concerned they'd be about him disappearing. Granted, there was a much more well-adjusted trans couple in the book, so there is hope. But this book did depress me a non-zero amount, and left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

With all that said, however, a lot of this is very subtle and I might have misread certain aspects of the book. The reception it has received so far suggests that's probably likely. A main character also doesn't have to be likeable for a book to be good. While I very much wanted the best for Crane, I can't deny that I found him almost abysmally self-centered--but that doesn't make the book bad and the fact that I was so focused on it while reading is a strong sign of how well done this was. I'm a huge Andrew Joseph White fan, and very much did enjoy this book, hence the four stars--it's a shocking, bracing horror novel which was impossible to put down, and was, in certain respects, far more timely than I wish.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press (specifically Christine Calella!) for giving me an eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review!

Jesus H. Christ. Holy Shit. AJW you've done it again but Good Lord. Of course I loved this book, OF COURSE. But also I will never be the same again.