Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

11 reviews

magicole's review

dark emotional hopeful sad tense

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Body horror, Sexual violence, and Violence

cowboyugly's review

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Genocide, Gore, Death, Dysphoria, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, War, Blood, Body horror, and Child abuse

fozlandgirl's review

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

4.0

I enjoyed this a lot but I don't know if I was the target audience as it was really young. So much body horror. So much.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Stalking, Death, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Classism, Vomit, Genocide, Gore, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Pandemic/Epidemic, Toxic relationship, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Sexual violence, and Suicide attempt

brynalexa's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I’m not much of a horror reader so this was VERY gory for me but the gore was done in a way that painted a realistic picture. I did not question anything about the characters or setting, I was there with them. Awesome LGBTQ+ rep and disability rep. Love the exploration of religious trauma. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Dysphoria, Genocide, Deadnaming, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, Colonisation, Cursing, Confinement, War, Murder, Body horror, Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Sexual content, Sexism, and Alcohol

emjams's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, and Child death

Moderate: Xenophobia, Self harm, Mental illness, Medical content, Abandonment, War, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Outing, Domestic abuse, and Mass/school shootings

Minor: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Animal death, and Alcohol

This book has basically every imaginable TW on it EXCEPT for sexual assault, but even that is briefly touched on. Benji has trauma from assault, but only from physical/emotional abuse, not SA.

anonymous_blobfish's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

4.0

Ok, despite my earlier claims that I wasn’t going to review this one just yet, I’m here with the review. Why the change of heart? I’m currently reading another own voices trans dystopic/apocalyptic body horror novel that I’m having polar opposite feelings about and that has really cemented my opinion of this story.

Disclaimer to start: I’m a white cis woman. I’m queer and a late comer to that part of myself. I’m a staunch atheist who has no religious trauma. I do have some of that fun mother trauma but from a different angle. This is all to say that there are much more important opinions than my own to refer to. I just want to talk about how this book made me feel and what I did or did not like about it.

Please refer to the authors review for full content warnings. This book is A Lot™️ and includes a variety of body horror, religious trauma, homophobia and transphobia, as well as gore, violence (physical and sexual), and genocide.

Hell Followed With Us is an intense, graphic, relentless story that takes place in the aftermath of a religious cult’s genocidal actions. We follow two POV characters: Benji (who we spend the majority of our time with), a trans boy struggling with his identity and place in society, and Nick, the autistic leader of a resistance group who operate out of a queer friendly community centre. 

This book was intense. I was not expecting the body horror to be as graphic as it was (despite the very clear introductory content warning by the author). I also didn’t reacquaint myself with the plot before starting (it’s been in my list for ages and the library just got an audiobook and I just jumped on in) so the storyline was unexpected and not entirely what I had remembered it being (seriously all I remembered was biblically accurate angel). I do think reading the blurb would have helped a little but the one criticism I really have about this book is that I didn’t feel like it explained the world well. This may be due to listening to the audiobook rather than reading the physical book (I may have missed things while multitasking) but I did feel a little lost for the first third of the story.

Aside from this, I think this book was exceptionally good. There was such a feeling of authenticity that comes from an own-voice author and the especially appreciated how unsanitised this story was. Benji and Nick were both incredibly flawed characters who were portrayed so lovingly: they were flawed and messy and sometimes a little too much and that doesn’t make them less worthy of love. I found the side characters to be compelling although occasionally a bit shallow (I wanted more, I’m greedy). I also found the storyline fascinating once I understood what was happening.

For anyone considering reading this book: do it. But have grace with yourself. This book will make you feel uncomfortable. Between the vomiting up of internal organs and the reflection on unintentional transphobia, it is a lot. I’m very keen to read the authors next book as I think he will only grow in skill!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Transphobia, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Physical abuse, Murder, Genocide, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Forced institutionalization, Death, Deadnaming, Body horror, Sexual violence, and Violence

kchas's review

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, Homophobia, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Gun violence, Grief, Gaslighting, Genocide, Emotional abuse, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Body shaming, Deadnaming, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Misogyny, and Cursing

fuguefire's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book was a fantastic story about a trans boy who is being turned into a monster by those he loved, and who is fighting tooth-and-nail to become something different. If you have been looking for queer horror, you have found it. I think that this book serves as a really good allegory for the consequences of evangelistic christianity on LGBTQ+ people.

The primary aspect of this theme is the main character Benji himself of course. Seraph, the mutation Benji has been infected with, is literally devouring his body from the inside out, causing him to vomit organs and his skin to fall off in sheets. This is a graphic portrayal of the body dysmorphia that trans teens feel every day: the betrayal of one's own body transforming into something grotesque, and being helpless to stop it. Even worse: knowing that if your family really loved you the way they should, then things would have been different. Indeed, the real horror that seems to plague Benji throughout this book was NOT his profane metamorphosis, but the knowledge that none of it- the death of billions, the murder of his father, the hatred of his identity- had to happen at all. If the church had simply accepted the world the way it was, the world would still be standing, and perhaps Benji would become the man he knows he should have been. 
The second part of this theme is displayed by Nick, leader of the ALC, and once a member of the Angels. throughout the book, we see Nick's mistrust of Benji, and with good reason. There was a really good moment where benji confronts Nick about using the pronoun "it" in stead of "he" and I think it was a really good example of how trans (and minority) characters cannot be written like they exist in a vacuum, and also the ways that people even inside the queer community can still level violence at one another. Of course, at the end of this intense scene, half of benji's face falls off, and suddenly the audience is reminded that this whole conflict over pronouns might not be happening if not for christian extremism in the first place. Perhaps there is a world where Benji and Nick would happily be friends, celebrating their queerness in a loving community. But that world is not theirs anymore.
Finally, I think that Nick's fate in this story is worth noting. Nick, leader of the ALC, whom nobody expected had any ties to the Angels, still gets partially transformed by the latent virus that he was inoculated with as a kid. This is a perfect metaphor for the life-long consequences of being exposed to religious abuse. Even years after you've escaped their influence, and after spending your whole life dedicated to righting their wrongs, a trace of it is always there with you, waiting to bare its teeth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Murder, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Homophobia, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Genocide, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Gore, Religious bigotry, Vomit, Death, Body horror, Blood, and Body shaming

Moderate: Dysphoria, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Mental illness, Outing, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Stalking, Medical content, Rape, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, War, and Misogyny

glen3's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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, Body horror, Deadnaming, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Vomit, Murder, Religious bigotry, and Transphobia

Moderate: Child death, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Medical content, Grief, Toxic relationship, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Bullying, Child abuse, and Gaslighting

sapphicacademic's review

adventurous challenging emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I love queer horror/dystopia so much. I started this book in December '22, got busy, put it down for a bit. Then a friend of mine wrote his final essay on it and I needed to finish the read. I loved it so much. As a former GSA president and current queer youth advocate, I could see myself and the kids I work with in so much of the ALC. You can tell the author has been involved in queer culture, it's such a realistic and casual depiction. Also I LOVE having autistic characters where the story isn't ABOUT their autism, Nick's autism is written so well. If you want to read queer stories, don't look for the cute palatable love stories. Read this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Vomit, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Transphobia, Gun violence, Genocide, Emotional abuse, Religious bigotry, Classism, Dysphoria, Death of parent, Deadnaming, Blood, Death, Cursing, Chronic illness, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcohol, Child abuse, Classism, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, Self harm, Religious bigotry, Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, and Panic attacks/disorders

This book is, despite its fantastical elements, about the reality of being queer. The author has really good trigger warnings detailed on his website/goodreads.