I think I am still in shock.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. Hell, I feel like I can read some shit and still be okay. This chewed me up, swallowed, shat me, put me in a paper bag, and set me on FIRE. Then it stomped on me.
How to wrap my thoughts around a review…this perspective is necessary to have in the world. This book is political. Don’t think for a second it’s not. Especially now.
The horrors of the aliens and cult-like vibe that comes with the hive is secondary to the horrors Crane (mute, autistic, trans man) must endure, the extreme gender dysphoria he must continue to face when forced to follow through with a pregnancy to term. This is not something abstract; this is our very present future. This is a modern-day horror, a real-life threat to our trans community. To know that even one person has felt half of this is what is truly horrifying.
Of course, there is body horror, sci-fi horror, cult vibes, loss of autonomy, high control, untreated mental illness. So much more. It’s repulsive, repugnant, disgusting, vile, abhorrent.
This book will fuck with your head. Hopefully, it makes you think and you see beyond the aliens to the meat of it. It is unforgettable.

I cannot stress this enough READ AND HEED the trigger warnings.

This book is a visceral account of a mute autistic trans man experiencing abuse, self hate, suicidal thoughts, and being forced to carry a pregnancy he doesn’t want by aliens who appear as maggots, flies, and worms. This book is gross and brutal and does not hold back. From page one I was nauseous basically the entire time, which was the point. I saw a lot of myself in the main character which made reading this even harder. I have long loved AJW’s work, from his very first book. That said, this definitely falls under the category of books I will only read once. Every scene was hard for me to get through. Not because it’s poorly written or bad, but because the work is so deeply personal and violent. It is a horror and it lives up to that category. Not for the faint of heart at all.

This was raunchy, entertaining and I was cringing away constantly. Needless to say I really enjoyed this campy and creepy horror story. I am Appalachian and it was so easy to picture the exact setting where this story was taking place. Very well done and a super quick but gross read. Truly lived this!

AJW is one of my favorite horror authors and I can say he didn't disappoint. His adult debut centers around Crane, a mute/autistic trans man and his pregnancy throughout the novel. I feel like as the reader, I would've liked a more indepth history of the Hive in general. White's writing about pregnancy in such controversial and realistic issues is something I'd love to see more of with the current political climate we're living in.

I... honestly, I just finished this, and I am at a total loss as to how to review what I just finished.

First of all, very much check the trigger warnings. I saw the author put them on here in the reviews.

Like other works by White I've read, this one was phenomenal. But it left me in such a state of shock. I genuinely may need to reread it later on to fully process it all. I had to put it down several times while reading, sometimes talking through events with my partner, only to jump right back into it.

This is horror at it's finest, and if you can make it through, it's an incredible read. But I genuinely don't know how to explain or elaborate any more than that. Just...damn. It's a timely story and a painful and distressing one, but it is a good one.

It is clear from the acknowledgments at the end just how personal this story is, too, and I respect White so much for writing this.

Wow. This book was so dark but I loved it. I completely forgot where I was for the last 10 chapters and when someone interrupted me I was so confused. There was definitely a few issues with the overall lore, like I wish there was a more in depth explanation for the worms, but still, it was amazing.

This book is the most engaging and heart wrenchingly terrifying novel I have read to date. Crane is a young trans man with what he considers a comfortable existence, when his life gets turned upside down and he is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term for his worm leaders. The absolute terror that Andrew Joseph White is able to evoke in the reader from his words alone is a skill not often seen in the genre. In following Crane's pregnancy from his point of view, the reader gets a full emotional rollercoaster and experiences all the same gutpunches that are handed to Crane left and right. The story is poignant, the characters realistic, and I could not put this down even if I tried,

this book made me so uncomfortable and i will never read it again— and that's a great thing.

i don't read much horror because i don't have the stomach for a lot of it. so maybe my perspective is unique amongst this book's target audience and maybe not everyone will feel sick reading this— but if you're like me and want to take a chance at something different and support trans writers, then this is a great book to step out of your comfort zone. this book was no exception and actually took me a while to get through because of how difficult it was to read a lot of scenes. this book definitely isnt for the faint of heart. it's fucked up. crane's life is fucked up. it doesn't shy away from the raw horror and disgust in the topics it covers. crane's story /is/ horrific and you feel every inch of crane's horror and that disgust. the fact that so much of the world in this novel is real and just like ours makes the horros even more real. Andrew Joseph White is a horror novelist to watch out for

Crane isn’t alone; he has the hive, and they are always with him. When Crane finds himself pregnant, he knows he doesn’t want to keep it. But when you’re part of the hive, it’s not that simple.

Gritty, unflinching, and overall packed with raw emotion, You Weren’t Meant to be Human had my jaw on the floor from the first page. With ease, Andrew Joseph White disgusts and entrances the reader with lyrical prose which describe some of the most viscerally disturbing horrors I‘ve read. But it isn’t just the runaways finding home with an alien worm hive that will draw the readers to YWMTBH, it is also the familiar emotional depth and empathy with which AJW handles a main character in crisis—and wow is Crane in crisis.

While I prefer AJW’s YA horror, I think horror readers drawn to raw and emotional stories that do not hesitate when it comes to the gut wrenching horror will really enjoy this.

This story is not about motherhood or the horrors of child rearing or anything even close to it. No. This is about the horrors of pregnancy and birth, told through the eyes of an autistic transgender man.

Crane is a young 20something autistic transgender man, who also happens to be non-verbal. So first of all reading this story from the POV of Crane and having him be such a well rounded character while never speaking a word was just… wow.

As a younger adult, Crane left his seemingly picturesque life, when he was coerced by what’s known as ‘The Hive’ to join them and help do their bidding. The Hive is a pile of sentient alien worms and flies that need to feed on human remains to survive. Their Hive just so happens to live in the employee office of a roadside gas station.

Our squirmy pile of buzzing yuck promises a better life, and all the things Crane wants for himself if he joins them. This means gender affirmation, getting on HRT, making himself who he was meant to be.

Enter Levi, an ex military man that is the first person who ever made Crane feel like the man he is. He’s a sort of ‘Hunter’ for The Hive. And he’s the first person that Crane has ever done the dirty deed with.

It comes as a horrifying surprise to Crane when he starts to feel ill for days on end, only to find out he is pregnant.

But he thinks surely The Hive will help rid me of this trespass upon my body, but no. The Hive wants the pregnancy to come to term. So he is assigned a protective companion meatsuit powered by worms that he lovingly names Stagger, because of the way it moves.

This is a story of betrayal, dysphoria, and absolutely fits within the narrative that we are seeing forced upon transgender people in our real world today.

The way they are used and scapegoated, the way the ones that are supposed to love them will say that they do, but this is also just… how it is. The Hive knows what’s best. Sound familiar?

This book made me viscerally uncomfortable--I LOVED it!

Almost everyone knows by this point, but please keep in mind that this is an adult novel (and makes it very clear right off the bat.) It is a huge departure from Andrew Joseph White's YA books and I was a little dubious on if I'd like it as much as I did those, but there was nothing to be worried about. This book is so dark and upsetting and creepy I'm obsessed. I felt so attached to Crane as a character and, while I was rooting for something good to finally happen to the guy, ajw kept me on my toes. I can confidently say I never had any real idea where this novel was going and I mean that as a compliment. I really don't know what to say beyond that this is one of the most disturbing books I've read in a while and I hope we get more in the same vein as this one in the future.

Out of respect to Andrew Joseph White, I won't publish a public facing review.

To preface this, I am transmasc. I am autistic. I regularly read extreme horror. My objections to this book are not just some transphobe out of their depth. This book needed another draft, or to be a short story. The self flagellation was so unending that it made it hard for me to want anything good for Crane. I don't need my protagonists to be morally sound, but I do think that mentioning indulging in bestiality is beyond the pale. Animals cannot consent. Consuming even fictionalized versions of this content is akin to CSAM. Intrusive thoughts are one thing. Going out of your way to search AI generated animal abuse content online is another. That is not how intrusive thoughts work. To quote the wise words of a tumblr user, "I don't think jacking off to angry birds is a symptom of autism."

I am not the type of person who thinks there are off limits topics in fiction. It all depends on what you're doing for and how you handle the topic. This was incompetently done and seemed to imply that Crane's autism is responsible for consuming animal abuse material. That is also not how autism works. I realize that the scene is most likely implying that Crane hates being autistic in that moment because of his inability to communicate. However, the phrasing makes it unclear and almost sounds like his autism is making him consume animal abuse material.

This book was so one-note that it was hard to care. It wallows in misery. I can't say a single thing about Crane's personality other than "feral." This book also falls prey to the same white navel-gazing that the Handmaid's Tale does. "What if a horrible thing happened to ME!?" Well, horrible things are happening to Black women currently. People are dying because of lack of access to healthcare. But yes, what if evil worms made you get pregnant? Wouldn't that be awful? There is no mention of race whatsoever in this book, which is probably for the best. But even a foreword that says "these are my fears, but there are people in the world actively dying because of lack of abortion access" would have been nice. If I hadn't liked the ending, I would ask people to avoid this book. It isn't that it's disturbing, it's that the book lacks self awareness and curiosity of the world outside of Crane's life. Where did the worms come from? What exactly is the metaphor here?

There are some lines that really spoke to me, but it was hard to appreciate them. The tone was so bleak the entire way through, it reminded me of people who are always trying to one-up your trauma.

I get that this book was very personal for AJW, but being personal and being a good book are different things. Eating the baby was iconic though. Don't talk to me until I've eaten my daughter. I worry that AJW will continue to lack balance in his books. Sad boys wallowing is maybe my least favorite genre.

Soft DNF @ 17%

I know this is so stupid but there are centipedes for the page breaks and I have such an intense phobia of centipedes that reading this e-ARC was causing me anxiety. And it wasn't even the content of the book freaking me out lmaooo.

Love AJW, the writing was really good and gripping, so I will have to wait til release so I can listen to the audiobook.

Absolutely visceral, unapologetically disturbing, and downright dark. Everything here is horrifying and timely, and I'll be thinking about it for years to come. White pulls no punches with the body horror, political atmosphere, and mental health--and this novel was all the better for that.

Holy … What a book.
Just like Andrew Joseph White’s YA stories, this one is not for the faint of heart. Just take the anxiety and horror from those and multiply it. I wouldn’t call ‘You Weren’t Meant to Be Human’ pure horror, though, more like soft horror, similar to D.C. Drew’s stories.

What do you do to get accepted by society when you want to be yourself so badly? This story feels like one about a cult. At first, you feel valued—and included. But then the discomfort kicks in. But hey, you’re still accepted, even though deep down you know all those things that are happening aren’t normal. And then you’re forced to do things against your will, like keeping the baby instead of getting an abortion.

From the moment I started reading, I wanted to pull Crane away from that hive and hug him. I hated, loathed, despised Levi, and I almost wanted to strangle that guy. I wanted Crane to stay with Birdy and Aspen. But like with all cults, Crane just couldn’t escape. And the thing is, not everything was bad for him. Not all people seemed bad all the time. And still … what about consent, what about permission, what about freedom? By the time I got to the Third Trimester, my chest flooded with pain. Oh, sweet, sweet Crane … a knot formed in my throat and I only wanted to yell, “No Crane, it’s not perfect. You’re a good person.”

And then those parts about Sophie. They felt incredibly personal, especially knowing that Andrew Joseph White has a past as a Sophie too.

When I was reading ‘The Spirit Bares Its Teeth,’ I had to look away sometimes, step off the operating table because it just got too much. The same with this story. As a mom, reading the final part was hard, but I understood why Crane did what he did. That ending left a lump in my throat. And the acknowledgments just destroyed me. The lump turned into big, fat tears.

Thank you, Andrew, for giving us this story. For showing us how you felt back then. I’m so happy you’re in a better place now.

Thank you, Saga Press and NetGalley, for this twisted and sick and one of the most discomforting stories I’ve ever read. I’ll never forget Crane and his Sophie.

Well I’m ill. But I do believe that was the intended purpose. Thank you for this preview arc, Saga. I’m blown away.

I could say that escalated but the whole book really was something horrific right from page 1. I have enjoyed Andrew’s YA historical horror novel I read but I def respect him for creating this book and leveling up. It feels ridiculously timely at this point in history. Many will not like that this book exists. I’m so glad Andrew wrote it. Take the warnings seriously because it goes there, it’s visceral and disturbing. I can’t stop thinking about the ending. It’s horror sone well 😳

Thank you so much for this ARC.

I’ve been lucky enough to read the past three AJ White books on Netgalley. Every one of them have pulled me out of a bad reading slump, and they never miss. I’ve been so excited for this book’s release.

I felt nauseated reading this. The content warnings are not a joke. The writing pulls you into the story, and it’s impressive. This story is uncomfortable, necessary, and feels deeply personal. Nothing felt excessive or added for shock value. There’s some things I’ve never seen captured on page that were done so perfectly in this book.


I wish there had been some more exploration of other hives and the world this takes place in, but I also think that doing that would take away from the book. So much of this book made me feel almost claustrophobic and trapped and I think there was a point to that.


It’s been over 2 weeks since I read this and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

5 stars

Dark, disturbing, and deeply visceral. Andrew Joseph White's debut adult horror novel is a lot of things, but amazing is definitely one of them. Admittedly, this book may not be for everyone because of the subject matter and could definitely be triggering for some. But for some, like myself, Crane's journey in this crazy, otherworldly setting, it could be so so painfully relatable. This story is dark and graphic, but Crane's feelings are genuine and real. Crane's experiences as a trans man really hit home for me. and I felt so seen. If you are mentally in a place to do so, this is definitely worth checking out. This story will stick with me forever. It has burrowed itself in my brain like one of the parasitic worms, and I'm not mad about it. I'm gonna yell at everyone to read this book.

“Oh child, this world was not made for ones like you. Come with us, come with us, come with us.”

🪱 When the worms hiding in the depths of Appalachia offer Crane a chance for the parts of life he’s always longed for, he can’t say no. The conditions aren’t ideal, but with these monstrous creatures Crane gets the chance to transition and to never have to speak again. Among the broken folks that the worms have taken in, Crane finds Levi - a brutal ex marine that (typically) remembers he’s a man. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant and the worms demand the child’s birth, Crane begins to spiral and knows that everything will end in blood. 🪱

Well, it’s been more than a month since I read You Weren’t Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White and I still do not know how to describe, rate, or even talk about this book. It’s a visceral read that absolutely made me take a deep look at several things that make me deeply uncomfortable. That, of course, was the point…but it was on a level I wasn’t prepared for.

I’ve only recently started reading horror, but I’ve been a fan of horror movies all my life and I can’t help but wonder if this book fell into the franchise trap. Where a horror movie franchise will make one film that goes beyond pushing the envelope, not because it benefits the story but because they want to see just how far the audience will go with them. Some of the on page brutality seemed, to me, excessive. Not unreal, not untrue, but perhaps unnecessary to show each and every detail.

Aside from that aspect, I was blown away by this book. The detail in which the horror of pregnancy was described and the constant fear that queer people experience was top notch. And the ending? I’m one of the folks who loved it!

Am I glad that I read You Weren’t Meant to Be Human? Absolutely! Would I recommend it to folks? Only a very specific subset of folks that I know will be able to handle something this dark and brutal. If that sounds up your alley check it out yourself when it’s released on September 25th, but this one gets four stars from me!

I got an ARC of this book.

Holy Fuck.

I don't know how I can approach this book without just trauma dumping. So please be prepared. The trigger warnings for this book are intense and very much needed. I understand them at a level I wish no person had to. The way that I could understand them made this book that much more horrifying for me. Not only did I understand the urges that Crane had, I understand the immediate reaction to finding out he was pregnant. I am one of those trans guys that knew if I ever got pregnant my option was abortion or death. Crane knew that too.

The way that sex is approached in this as a way of feeling like a man, but also as a way to self harm. The way that the sex was never consensual, but Crane couldn't call it rape or abuse, because he couldn't say no. I understood it all. It hit me so hard in a way that was affirming. It should be worrisome that a horror novel is one of the more affirming books I have read.

The big bad being a worm beast (I am afraid of worms actually) was also a weirdly perfect touch for me. The real issue was the loss of autonomy and supports. It was magically horrific in very specific ways for me. Every single sentence was brilliant.

The authors this was compared to are some of my top horor authors. This was a splatterpunk that felt trans affirming and relied on the body horrors that are not unique to trans men, but felt handled in a way that I have never seen in a cis male writing a woman going through similar plots. So just this was the perfect read for me.

I could go on all day, but I don't want to ruin any of the pieces of the plot or the horror. This is a book that has to be experienced to be felt fully. Overall, if you are looking for a good horror, a splatterpunk that isn't only a hundred pages long, or a trans horror, then give this one a shot.