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A review by citrus_seasalt
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White
5.0
Such a stellar read. I loved all the horror elements, the plot itself, and how Benji, even amid his transformation into a literal monster, felt human. I also loved how the Seraph began to really become part of him, not just a separate entity. It provided some very interesting internal monologues about how his gender tied into that, which I especially enjoyed as someone who pretty much exclusively reads and enjoys queer horror.
Was it an easy read? No. The gore got very graphic, and there's a reason that Andrew Joseph-White left a Goodreads review solely to detail the trigger warnings attached. (Some of the self-gaslighting really got to me, I'll admit, because although I thankfully haven't been in Benji's place I've thought similar things to downplay how I've been treated.) The passages left before different chapters started were also eerily similar to the kinds of hate spewed by Catholic/Christian bigots in the current day, no doubt because the author intended to draw parallels with that. (I swore with one of them it was ripped from an actual book I'd seen an ex-Fundie review on YouTube but alas, the author of that sentence was just a character within the book so it must've only been heavily inspired by that. Emphasis on HEAVILY.)
I read this in under a day and gobbled up practically every bit of it; some chunks with gore and guts I had to spit back out, some a bitter and smoky taste of vengeance and angst, others bite-sized bits of comfort in the queer survival and community that was still present within this story(exceptionally rare for an apocalyptic one, dare I say?!).
Was it an easy read? No. The gore got very graphic, and there's a reason that Andrew Joseph-White left a Goodreads review solely to detail the trigger warnings attached. (Some of the self-gaslighting really got to me, I'll admit, because although I thankfully haven't been in Benji's place I've thought similar things to downplay how I've been treated.) The passages left before different chapters started were also eerily similar to the kinds of hate spewed by Catholic/Christian bigots in the current day, no doubt because the author intended to draw parallels with that. (I swore with one of them it was ripped from an actual book I'd seen an ex-Fundie review on YouTube but alas, the author of that sentence was just a character within the book so it must've only been heavily inspired by that. Emphasis on HEAVILY.)
I read this in under a day and gobbled up practically every bit of it; some chunks with gore and guts I had to spit back out, some a bitter and smoky taste of vengeance and angst, others bite-sized bits of comfort in the queer survival and community that was still present within this story(exceptionally rare for an apocalyptic one, dare I say?!).