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A review by tifftastic87
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Content Warnings: death of a parent, abuse, blood, gore, body horror, death, general violence, gun violence, transphobia, dead naming, religious bigotry, and genocide
Two years ago a religious eco-terrorist group released a bioweapon called The Flood and killed 9 billion people. They founded New Nazareth and infected Benji with a variant of the virus to create the Saraph. This variant will mutate him and allow him to lead the church's militia and flood abominations to bring everyone to heaven.
I feel like this needed a bit more time curing before it was released to the world. Benji oscillated between guilt, which didn't use the religious trauma enough to make it feel real, and lusting over the Nick. Nick, the leader of the rebellion group that saves Benji, was very 2D. He was much more of a plot element than a character. I needed more between them than Nicke giving orders and Benji being like "damn he's cute."
The body horror was there, and probably at a good level for YA but somethings were not explained very well and I really couldn't tell what was happening. The story was in firsf person, so perhaps it was intentional, but it was not clear it was intentional.
I have a lot more opinions on the world building and the lack of justification for the relationship between Benji and Nick (other than it's YA and they have to). But I'll leave it at there were a lot of inconsistencies.
Two years ago a religious eco-terrorist group released a bioweapon called The Flood and killed 9 billion people. They founded New Nazareth and infected Benji with a variant of the virus to create the Saraph. This variant will mutate him and allow him to lead the church's militia and flood abominations to bring everyone to heaven.
I feel like this needed a bit more time curing before it was released to the world. Benji oscillated between guilt, which didn't use the religious trauma enough to make it feel real, and lusting over the Nick. Nick, the leader of the rebellion group that saves Benji, was very 2D. He was much more of a plot element than a character. I needed more between them than Nicke giving orders and Benji being like "damn he's cute."
The body horror was there, and probably at a good level for YA but somethings were not explained very well and I really couldn't tell what was happening. The story was in firsf person, so perhaps it was intentional, but it was not clear it was intentional.
I have a lot more opinions on the world building and the lack of justification for the relationship between Benji and Nick (other than it's YA and they have to). But I'll leave it at there were a lot of inconsistencies.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Eating disorder, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic