A review by clockworkstars
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

challenging emotional tense
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

“Do you believe in God? 
I do, please stop, there's so much blood” 
5☆|5 
 
Sometimes, I love a book so much that I can't put it down but am forced by life to do so. Sometimes, that book is so good that I do not know exactly how to put words on my thoughts to make others want to read it without spoiling them, because it is way too good to miss it. Hell followed with us is one of them. I received from Netgalley and Daphne Press an ARC for this book, and I would like to thank them for sending it to me. I am glad to finally talk to you about it because it was truly an amazing and surprising read. 
 
I have been waiting to read Andrew Joseph White's debut for months. Or perhaps even years, I cannot remember since when this book has been sitting in my wish list. I heard so much good about Andrew Joseph White's novels that as excited I was to discover this book, I was also a bit scared of reading it. And yet, while my expectations were so high, while I was terrified to actually *not* like this book because I do not read plenty of post-apocalyptic books because I do not read plenty of horror books. Yet, this book ended up being one of the best books I have read this year. 
 
This book is going to make you uncomfortable. It is going to make you want to cry and scream. It is probably going to wake up the queer anger, the religious trauma. The author starts the book with content warnings (available at the end of this review) and an explanation of why he wrote this story. And while this book *is* disturbing, it has a reason to exist — a reason to be read. And that's so important. White wrote this book because he was angry. Because he wanted to show queer kids that they can walk in hell, come back, and still be worthy of love. It is so significant to me that this book exists, and I believe that it honours really well its purpose. 
 
Here, we are following Benji, a 16-year-old trans boy who managed to escape a religious sect, the Angels, a cult that committed genocide on the entire human population on Judgement Day. But he managed to run away only after being injected with a bioweapon, turning him into Seraph. While on the run, he is going to be saved by the ALC, a group of queer teenagers and young adults only trying to survive in the apocalypse that became their world. 
 
I love this book so much I think everyone should read it. It is dark, it is probably one of the darkest books I have ever read. It did make me want to cry, we can feel all across the book the rage, the anger. Benji is slowly changing, becoming this Seraph, something that he believes is a monster. His transformation across the book was terrific to read, but still managed to keep me hooked. The fact that we can link this transformation to dysphoria, as Adri from perpetualpages explained very well in his review, is remarkable. 
 
The author's writing style is incredible. He managed to keep us hooked all across this book while writing his theme incredibly well. I would be interested in reading essays about this book. White's style is impressive and beautiful. When I started this book, I didn't want to put it down. I was totally in it, captivated by the author's words and not wanting to leave the characters. I was only putting down this book because I needed to because life forced me to do so. When I was not reading this book, I was thinking about it. The characters, especially Benji, Nick, and Salvador, were living rent-free in my mind. And the concept of this book is amazing. I am not religious, never have been. I do not believe that I can understand the feelings that religious traumas bring out. And yet, I have found the religious aspects and discussion so interesting here. 
 
Talking about characters, they will stick with me for a while. I cannot stop thinking about Benji. This book has an element that I utterly adore seeing talked about as much as I am terrified of it, and I will use the following quote to introduce it: 
 
“He was an Angel. He was made for war.” 
 
I changed it slightly to avoid spoilers, but this sentence addresses one thing I truly liked in this book: Child soldiers. Those characters are just children. The oldest are maybe, I don't know, 20, 22? They were children when the Angels unclenched Armageddon, playing God and killing most of the human population to do what they thought to be God's will. They were forced to grow up way too fast, too soon. There is a brutal contrast between the horrific world those characters are living in and the fact that at times, they are just kids. They acted like teenagers sometimes and made me smile while doing so. 
 
I loved them all. Even those that I wasn't supposed to love. I love queer lost kids just trying to survive, and I don't know what exactly it says about me. I loved Benji, his tragic fate, and how he acted throughout the story, even when making awful decisions. I loved Nick, and how we learned more about him while progressing in the book. I love the found family trope and the side characters. I even liked Theo a lot and his relationship with Benji, the toxicity of it and how the author wrote it. I am not the biggest fan of Benji and Nick's relationship, but it grows soft on me. All the characters in this book were so tragic, trying so hard to survive and keep going. 
 
I love the concept, I love the execution. I love the writing, the characters, somehow I even like the end. I have definitely never read a book like that. It is unique. It is mind-blowing, the body horror is horrific, and it is gore. This book is truly incredible, and it is going to stick with me for a while, I even hope that it never leaves me. There's a high chance that I will buy a physical copy as soon as possible. I can only recommend this book to you. Please read it. 
 
“Hell has followed us onto Earth, and I am the monster that has brought it forth.” 

CW:  
  • Violence (explicit gore, arson, murder and mass murder including children, warfare, terrorism)
  • Body horror
  • Transphobia (misgendering, dead-naming with name written out repeatedly, threats of transphobic violence, forced detransition)
  • Religious abuse/Christian terrorism, combined with elements of eco-fascism
  • Abusive parents and domestic partner violence (including returning to an abusive partner and victim self-blame)
  • Self-injury (including attempted suicide of a side character)
  • Emetophobia (vomiting) warning throughout
 
Representation:
  • Gay and trans main character
  • Gay and autistic main character
  • Achillean side character
  • Trans and emby side characters
  • Queer side characters
  • Muslim side character
  • Black side characters
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