Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

12 reviews

schausjk's review against another edition

dark hopeful tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The body horror in this was well written, and the religious nature of the cult was compelling. The religious trauma felt fairly authentic, and the biblical quotes throughout were very helpful in that regard. The dynamics between Benji, Nick, and Theo had a lot of potential, but I would have liked to have seen more from 

Nick regarding Theo and their shared history.

. Since the love of the queer community is a main component of the novel, it really would have been nice to have seen more acts of love or explorations of love in context.
However, I found most of the characters that weren't the main trio to be really one dimensional. It's one thing when it's just a random side characters that get that treatment, but even characters that are super relevant to the plot (like Benji's parents) felt like they were really boiled down to just one or maaaybe two traits in a way that didn't feel believable and took away from my general immersion. It gets worse when those really flat side characters are meant to be different types of representation. It's good in theory, but in practice it felt very tokenizing.
I also would have appreciated more worldbuilding on what more of the world looks like. 

If the main headquarters of the church is in a random city in Pennsylvania and they can't even stamp out a group of starving kids that have been systematically killing off their people, what would the rest of the world look like? I find it very hard to believe that the Flood decimated everywhere but the place it was created.

 
The last thing that bothered me was the sense of time. I know it's set like 15-20 years in the future, but it all reads very much like it's from 2020-2021. A lot of the same discourse within the queer community still happening despite the literal apocalypse, a lot of the same slang, and of course the obvious comparison to the ongoing pandemic. It really could have benefitted from either being set in the nearer future or from more development on how the community may have changed.

Ultimately, this book was an awesome premise, but wound up being mostly just disappointing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gore, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Deadnaming, Grief, and Homophobia

Moderate: Terminal illness, Torture, Medical trauma, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, War, Child death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Vomit

Minor: Animal death, Classism, Colonisation, and Sexual content

remimicha's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Murder, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Blood, Colonisation, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Gaslighting, Vomit, Torture, Panic attacks/disorders, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Child abuse, Violence, Transphobia, Body horror, Bullying, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, War, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Death of parent, Genocide, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, and Deadnaming