Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

316 reviews

in_love_with_him's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

leftovergarlicbread's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

4.5

I absolutely LOVED this book!! Finding a story about a trans masculine main character that isn't tokenized, or made into a story about girlhood and femininity, and instead has him be not only so solidly sent in his identity but for the story to actually CELEBRATE his masculinity. As a transmasculine person myself it was so truly refreshing and gave me something I didn't know I needed.

I found all the characters to be incredibly lovable and fun to read about. I loved their dynamics with each other. Nick was easily my favorite. The few chapters we got from his perspective were all such a treat and added such a fun layer. I loved loved loved how his autism was written. AJW , the author is trans and autistic himself, and you can see that in how he writes these characters.  Nick's autism felt so real and authentic without any of the weird stiltedness that can often come from non autistic authors trying to create autistic characters. I found him to be such a compelling and interesting character, how we got to see him do everything he could to avoid growing closer to Benji and still doing so regardless. How we got to see his outside persona, his masking, from Benji's perspective, and then got to see the rawness underneath in his chapters.

I also found Benji to be such a compelling main character. His motivation of "Be good" was done so well. We see him trying to honor his father with this, and trying to balance that with his personal desire for revenge and how he uses "be good" as reasoning for his actions even when it maybe doesn't exactly work. He was so desperate to be anything but what the church wanted him to be, and we see how that intense desire to distance himself from the church and their expectations of him affects him and leads him to decisions both good and bad.

I did find it a little distracting how Benji seemed to constantly switch between being very unaware of queer culture and shocked by diversity -on account of growing up in a literal evangelical cult- and then suddenly seeming quite well read on modern activist takes on race, class, and queerness. I wish we had gotten a little more of how growing up in the cult affected Benji socially and culturally. I wish we got to see him actively learn more about the actual world and learned more about these things from his peers rather than just coming in already with this oddly out of place activist knowledge.

I think the reason this doesn't have a 5 star from me is the ending. The ending is good, it's a nice ending, but I think my main problem with it is that it's a little too nice. The whole book  is filled with tradgedy and hardship and death and struggles, and I feel like the ending comes together a little too nicely and happily in tone compared to the rest of the book. Like, i'm GLAD that the characters got a happy ending I was so rooting for them to be happy, but I feel it would have been a little more satisfying with a slightly darker tone to the ending. The ending is also rather open, leaving a lot of room for the reader to imagine where they go from there, but I felt like the ending was a little too open for me personally. 

Overall though, this was, despite it's rather heavy story and themes, was such a comforting book to read. It was so unapologetically, loudly queer. It's defiant and hopeful despite the bleak circumstances. In the end it's about community and found family and acceptance and embracing your differences, down to your more "monstrous" and ugly ones. It's about breaking cycles of trauma and trying to be better, despite, despite, despite.  It's resilient and beautiful and authentic and messily and angrily queer.  

I can absolutely see myself revisiting this and I am absolutely planning reading White's other books too.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Genocide, Gore, Blood, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Deadnaming, Death, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual content and Toxic relationship

eliof's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

What a beautiful gorgeous book. Holy shit. Visceral and angry and cathartic and gory and hopeful.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

readingelli's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Transphobia

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content

ewinnk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

aplemus's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.75

this is surprisingly healing in a gay kid kicked out of church for being different and still has a holy kind of vengeful spite they needed to release kinda way

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Religious bigotry, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Deadnaming, Toxic relationship, and Dysphoria

helixlhart's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Transphobia, and Death of parent

Moderate: Deadnaming, Genocide, and Toxic relationship

aspen_suxs's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Transphobia, Violence, Religious bigotry, and War

Moderate: Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Vomit, Death of parent, Outing, and Dysphoria

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicide, and Toxic relationship

hippievamp's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad 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? Yes

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexism, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Dysphoria

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Classism

doctorw0rm's review against another edition

4.25

this was a tough read, especially towards the end, not because it’s not good but because the descriptions of dysphoria and the transphobia Benji faces were so authentic and relatable. i’ve never been in any situation nearly as awful as what Benji goes through in this book, but I think all trans people have been through some version of many of the events, like learning that someone important to you is misgendering you or doesn’t view you the way they said they did, or just realizing how bullshit the rules of the society you’re accustomed to are. 
I wasn’t a fan of Nick.

I never forgave him for using the wrong pronouns for Benji. Every autistic person I’ve ever met has respected trans people’s pronouns, so his black and white thinking being the reason he called Benji “it” just doesn’t work for me. Yes, it technically was not for transphobic reasons, it was because he didn’t view Benji as a real person. But if that isn’t a metaphor for how trans people are so often dehumanized which leads to people intentionally misgendering us to be cruel, then what was it? That had to be what White was going for, right? And while I know people can change and learn from their mistakes, I think Benji forgave Nick WAYYY too easily, and should not have apologized for comparing Nick to his mother. If I found out that a cute cis guy friend I liked was intentionally misgendering me behind my back, I would tear his throat out with my teeth, not continue to consider him as a romantic interest. I also just didn’t really buy their chemistry. Nothing about their relationship stood out as particularly profound or romantic to me.

I wish Benji had gotten to hang out with the other transmascs more,

just because Calvin was terrible doesn’t mean the rest of them are.

Literally the best part of being transmasc is hanging out with other transmascs.  
That’s really my only gripe with the book though.

Seeing Theo through Benji’s eyes go from a flawed romantic partner to a monster was great! Benji’s turmoil at having to pretend to continue to like him while he’s at New Nazareth was great! Really all of New Nazareth was great.

The book really shines in its descriptions of body horror,

and Benji describing the monster he had been turned into by the church was fascinating and horrifying. I definitely preferred the latter half of the book because of this, since most of the relationships Benji built at the youth shelter seemed pretty surface-level and not all that interesting, except for maybe Cormac since he started out an asshole and then they warmed up to each other.

I can’t wait to see what Andrew Joseph White will do with his Adult book, when he isn’t restrained by the barriers of the YA genre! 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Murder, Dysphoria, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Sexual content