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mayscue 's review for:
You Weren't Meant to Be Human
by Andrew Joseph White
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I’ll say first, I don’t think I was the intended audience for this book. This isn’t my normal genre and if I’d dug a little deeper into how gory and explicit this was, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. I am, however, a sucker for West Virginia based fiction and now here I am. Also thank you to Net Galley for the ARC. This is my honest review of a very shocking book.
What I liked: the portrayal of trans characters, the overall discussion about abortion, stagger’s character (i think?), and some of the portrayal of severe mental illness.
What I didn’t like: I actually didn’t understand the world. I couldn’t tell what the world structure was, an alien invasion that’s just hiding and people don’t seem that worried about it? Maybe I’m overlooking something here, but I kept being kind of thrown off by whatever universe this is happening in and the lack of info about it.
I also didn’t like this portrayal of an autistic person. I haven’t done the research about autism to say much more than this isn’t a very helpful portrayal for society. It certainly isn’t my experience with autism (people I know, not me personally) Beyond that, maybe I just didn’t get it. I’m not sure, but it felt wrong to me.
I think the fiction reader in me just wanted to have more explanation of the world this book is in, but at the same time I could see it just being a metaphor for what happened with Covid. I expected the world to stop but instead everyone weirdly and problematically adapted and life went on, just worse. In that way, I did like this part of the plot.
The end just left me wondering why? There seemingly was no specific reason the hive made Crane go through with the pregnancy. Why did they need that specific baby?
Overall this book made me sad. I can confidently say: I don’t know who this book is for. If you are interested in something thrilling, thought provoking, or just some kind of social commentary, I’d recommend looking elsewhere if you have any semblance of a weak stomach. It’s definitely very f-ed up and there were scenes I had to skip entirely, but I did read it in one day, so there’s that I guess.
What I liked: the portrayal of trans characters, the overall discussion about abortion, stagger’s character (i think?), and some of the portrayal of severe mental illness.
What I didn’t like: I actually didn’t understand the world. I couldn’t tell what the world structure was, an alien invasion that’s just hiding and people don’t seem that worried about it? Maybe I’m overlooking something here, but I kept being kind of thrown off by whatever universe this is happening in and the lack of info about it.
I also didn’t like this portrayal of an autistic person. I haven’t done the research about autism to say much more than this isn’t a very helpful portrayal for society. It certainly isn’t my experience with autism (people I know, not me personally) Beyond that, maybe I just didn’t get it. I’m not sure, but it felt wrong to me.
I think the fiction reader in me just wanted to have more explanation of the world this book is in, but at the same time I could see it just being a metaphor for what happened with Covid. I expected the world to stop but instead everyone weirdly and problematically adapted and life went on, just worse. In that way, I did like this part of the plot.
The end just left me wondering why? There seemingly was no specific reason the hive made Crane go through with the pregnancy. Why did they need that specific baby?
Overall this book made me sad. I can confidently say: I don’t know who this book is for. If you are interested in something thrilling, thought provoking, or just some kind of social commentary, I’d recommend looking elsewhere if you have any semblance of a weak stomach. It’s definitely very f-ed up and there were scenes I had to skip entirely, but I did read it in one day, so there’s that I guess.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Medical trauma, Abortion, Pregnancy, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail