Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Hell Followed with Us

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

618 reviews

jennireadsmaybe's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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

Queer and trans kids in a dystopian world fighting an oppressive religious fundamentalist group dead set on bringing about the end of times. I loved this dark, gritty story of a trans teenage boy (err biblically accurate bioweapon) questioning his faith and where he belongs in the world while simultaneously working to overthrow the extremely evil people who was raised by. At times he's so alone in this cruel world that I found myself so deeply emotionally traumatized for him.

Like most queer stories Hell Followed with Us has a strong found family element. I loved the ragtag group of kids from the Acheson LGBTQ+ Center; they lean on each other and fight so hard for each other in their dystopian society. Benji finally gets to be in a place where his transness isn't "wrong" and it's a heartwarming bit of love in an otherwise hateful world. Every bit of representation in this is so powerful. Andrew Joseph White is a powerhouse when it comes to terrifyingly realistic dystopian setting, and I will definitely be reading more of his works in the coming future

Read this if you like biblically accurate weapons of mass destruction, dark and gritty dystopians, found family, queer, trans, and neurodivergent representation, and taking a stand against fundamentalist sects.

An animated adaption is in the works, and I’m seated. The theater employees are scared and asking me to leave because it’s ‘not adapted yet’ but I’m simply too seated 💀

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ed_moore's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

4.25

“This is the quiet of the dead, the kind of quiet coloured by the creaking of rope and the rush of water and wind, all the things that aren’t the quiet that makes the quiet so loud it hurts”

The setting of Andrew Joseph White’s ‘Hell Followed With Us’ is simply incredible. The story follows a trans boy, Benji, who has been turned by a far right Christian extremist group who brought upon ‘the flood’ on judgement day and committed the genocide of nine billion ‘heretics’ into a monster called the Seraph that’ll bring them religious salvation. The dystopian backdrop to the story was so captivating and the world White creates around his band of rebel queer teenagers who try to exist in this reality against the force of The Angels is so harrowing yet fantastically crafted. It is however very unsettling and White does not hold back with the gore and body horror. Be warned this book is full of mutilation, disease, creatures that are made up from decaying corpses and general violence, but it does add to the horrifying religious apocalypse that White creates.

The story is primarily told through the perspective of Benji as he battles with being accepted as a boy and the monster that is growing inside him, however there are occasional other perspectives that didn’t feel overly necessary. I would have been happy with a consistent story from Benji’s perspective. It also often shows only the aftermaths of violence and battles rather than the events themselves which I felt was a small loss. The story however was captivating and the dystopian worldbuilding some of the best I have ever read.

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knittyreader's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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

3.5

This book is more action-focused than the previous book I read from this author, which made it a bit harder for me to get into it. However, I love how this more fast paced, dystopian action is used to discuss heavy topics and character development in a more natural way.

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in_love_with_him's review against another edition

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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

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leftovergarlicbread's review against another edition

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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.

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