Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

62 reviews

caissa_chthonia's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Deadnaming, Death, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Murder

maladaptivedaydreamer's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Deadnaming, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

ernie_bernie's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Blood, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

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

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

spooderman's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Moderate: Sexual assault, Slavery, Cannibalism, Stalking, and Alcohol

Minor: Eating disorder, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, and Lesbophobia

val_so_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Deadnaming, Death, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, and Terminal illness

mothman19's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Abortion, and Alcohol

Minor: Eating disorder, Excrement, and Pregnancy

bennebean's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

suicide attempt

booksthatburn's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-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

HELL FOLLOWED WITH US is the story of a trans boy during the apocalypse, trying to avoid turning into a biblically accurate angel; a creature of such mind-bending grotesquery and body horror that any conversation is required to start with “be not afraid” so that the other person hopefully doesn't run away screaming.

For some people there is body horror inherent in transness or in dysphoria, in the inexorable change of flesh into a form you’ve seen elsewhere but are utterly unable to recognize as yours. HELL FOLLOWED WITH US deals with themes of monstrosity and transness by embracing their connections during an apocalypse launched by evangelical Christians (a horrifyingly effective homophobic/transphobic/misogynistic death cult). It stars Benji, a teenage trans boy who is uninterested in most of the superficial trappings of masculinity because he’s going to be a decaying monster within a month anyway, his form utterly distorted beyond anything even the best binder could contain. 

There are strong themes of religious abuse, body horror, transphobia, and dysphoria. The short version is I love how HELL FOLLOWED WITH US engages with these topics, but please take care of yourselves. 

The worldbuilding is a little fuzzy on how exactly this plague started, waiting until late in the book to make explicit what happened. I'm fine with this, I love this immersive style of worldbuilding which assumes the reader has at least some baseline knowledge of the setting. Some readers might want a bit more clarity on how this all started, but I think an early reveal would have taken away from the urgency of Benji's current problems. The cult used the plague to kill most of the world, and now the survivors have to figure out how to get through what's next.

Benji is making the most of his final days by helping his newly-found companions from the ALC (a queer community center) fight off the Angels and try to get enough food to survive, all while trying to hide the changes in his body. Nick is a co-leader of the ALC, an infrequent narrator in the story but a consistent presence in Benji's thoughts. Nick is one of the few people outside the cult who knows what's been done to Benji and what he's turning into. Theo is the fiancé Benji left behind, kicked out of the Angels (the cult's warriors/enforcers) after the rest of his squad was killed. Benji is still in love with him even after fleeing, not yet ready to leave this one (usually) good part of his life behind. 

I love the way this engages with body horror and transness without shying away from either, or from the way they can blur into each other. It's about Benji's relationship to his body and a loss of control over what it's doing and what people think when they see him. He needs people to see that he's a boy and a person, no matter what his flesh is doing.

There’s a subtle detail which I appreciate, where even though (broadly speaking) the death cult Benji escaped is transphobic and sexist as an institution, whereas the kids at the ALC are queer and accepting that’s not a hard and fast distinction for every individual member of either group. It allows for something more nuanced, messier and realistic. In a book with a trans main character it would have been easy (and boring) to make all the villains (and only the villains) be transphobic. This doesn’t do that, and it’s glorious.

The story begins with Benji escaping, his father's blood on his face and terror in his heart while he's pursued by the Angels. Once he starts living in the ALC, Benji has to learn new terms for referring to the plague, the monsters, and the cult he left behind. Part of being in the cult for so long is that they have their own vocabulary for the terms which are important to them, most of which are meant to convey how amazing and good the destruction of the world and the genocide of most humans on the planet truly is. Many of the terms are pulled from the Bible, internally reinforcing the idea that everything that's happening is God-ordained and therefore, axiomatically, must be good (no matter how murderous). Conversely, the ALC's spin, such as it is, is that contagious abominations get called monsters, and that they don't want to die of the body-altering plague that the cult unleashed. Even though Benji has left the cult, the chapters begin with quotes from their speeches, writings, and their holy text texts. These help to immerse the reader in Benji's former headspace, the one which Theo still occupies.

If "trans boy is turning into a biblically accurate angel" didn't hook you, I don't know what will, but this book is amazing and you should read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Self harm, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Dysphoria

Minor: Sexual content and Pregnancy

CW for misgendering (graphic).

beebidon's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Physical abuse and Excrement