One of the most striking aspects of Hell Followed With Us is the raw and unflinching portrayal of trauma, resilience and the search for acceptance. White does not shy away from depicting the acts, effects and consequences of religious fanaticism, body horror and the struggles of living as a transgender person in a world that refuses to accept what is only natural. This novel is both a metaphorical and literal battle of Benji’s journey where he struggles with his sense of self and a religion that was imposed on him.

I’m a big fan of the dystopian world White created - although it’s not usually a genre i tend to pick up a lot. The world-building is nonetheless extremely impressive and in it is despited the Angels’ twisted ideology and a suffocating atmosphere that kept me on the edge of my seat.

The characters in Hell Followed With Us felt extremely real, complex and multifaceted. Benji is a very compelling main character and his gory and monstrous transformation highlighted the metaphor of the changes forced upon him by the cult and society. Not only that but it underlines how strong of a character he is, withstanding betrayal, heartbreak, death and the inner struggles of his heart.

This novel is definitely not for the weak of heart - if not for the gory descriptions, for the tears that the reader will, undoubtedly, shed. White offers a cathartic and empowering narrative, especially for those who can see themselves reflected in Benji’s character and/or struggles. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community this novel warmed and broke my heart in more ways than i was prepared for.

The ALC is an LGBTQ+ centre for teens that becomes a hub for people to try and fight back/survive against a religious doomsday cult that have turned people into actual monsters in order to push their agenda. The climate of the world is destroyed and there is very limited access to food and water. Benji is a trans teenager whose mother is the head of the Uber religious nutball squad. This book is a mix of dystopian futuristic hellscape and young trans/people trying to exist when extreme transphobia is rife. It’s such a strange mix-up of a book. There is a lot of religious references and repeated questions of Gods benevolence. I think this is a book that will stay with me for a while because there is a lot to think about.

Okay.. I knew barely anything about this book going into it.. and to be honest, I don’t know much more after reading it! 😂

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, I just wished we had more!!! How did the flood start? What does it mean? How does it affect everyone? What is the Seraph’s true purpose?!

I really enjoyed getting into the nitty gritty of these characters and watching them grow and insert themselves more. I loved the set up and the themes throughout.

I will say it is gorier than I expected it to be 😅 and at points I gasped/ ‘ewwwww’ed out loud 😂 but I’ve not really read any horror books so that was probably just me being a wuss 😂

Definitely excited to read more of Andrew’s work though!!

I've wanted to read this book so so much for so so long and it didn't disappoint me!!! The only reason this wasn't a 5* is because vomit is one of the mu big triggers but it won't bother a lot of people

Overall this is an incredibly intense, unique horror YA, that sometimes suffers from pacing issues. Hell Followed With Us is like nothing else I've read before, and for that I implore others to read it. It is an unapologietically queer, young adult, horror focusing on Benji, a young trans boy, who is desperately trying to escape the religious cult who raised him. At no point did I know how this story was going to end, and the graphic gore and religous trauma made it incredibly engaging read most of the time. Occasionally there was parts of the story that suffered from overly repeated phrases and ideas, that felt like it slowed down the pacing slightly.
Overall, I highly recommend.

5 ⭐️

Thank you Netgalley for letting me get a digital copy of Hell Followed With Us in exchange for my honest review! 🖤

AJW has done it again! I read Compound Fracture earlier this year and it became an instant favourite and this novel is no different. AJW just has an incredible way of gripping you steadfastly into his worlds and to his characters, all of which are grounded in reality even when the story is one of fantasy. Although, in saying that, this one in particular felt almost too real for comfort. The Angels of HFWU reminded me a lot of the Guilty Remnants from The Leftovers — an arrogant cult who believed that other people’s lives were theirs (or their god’s) to ruin. That aspect of the book was the most horrific because it was the most believable. Terrifying, truly.

This is most definitely a post-Covid19 novel, with its own plague laying waste to the vulnerable and innocent and leaving behind shattered communities, only to an obviously much more devastating extent. But it is the communities we are part of that help rebuild and reshape our view of the new world we live in. Without community we’re just alone, and no one wants to be alone at the end of the world.

My favourite element of this novel (and something that seems to be pretty prominent in AJW’s works) was the body horror. Some of the descriptions of the Graces and Benji’s Seraph body were so grotesque they circled right back around to being beautiful. Reading about Benji’s transformation was an experience, to say the least, and so vividly described. Love love loved it.

I can’t wait to read the remainder of AJW’s works; it’s very clear to me that he’s become an all-time favourite author of mine. I’m so, so excited to see what else he can do.

It's beautiful. It's heart wretching, disgusting, but absolutely beautiful.
Benji is a trans boy who wants to flee new Nazareth with his father. But his father dies and it seems to all go wrong when he gets help from a group of teenagers (ALC). They give him shelter and Benji, after a while, allows himself to call it home. But of course the Angels from New Nazareth have to come and ruin it. Which stirs up his desire to ruin new Nazareth.
Whilst turning into a seraphim, Benji finds love and family in the ALC, unraveling the brainwashing the angels did.
I absolutely loved this book, just like I loved Compound Fracture from A.J. White. I'm thankful I got to read this.

This book was an absolute RIDE. I’m here for queer rage forever. Definitely read the author’s note before diving in!
This is one of the most visceral horror books I’ve read in a long time and I loved every second of it.

I haven't read a decent dystopian in quite a while but Hell Followed with Us has just ended that poor streak. This is novel that just blasts at you straight from the start and doesn't stop testing your heart till the last page. Benji is trans and trapped in an evangelical fascist cult in the US who have decided to create a virus known as 'the flood' to bring about the end of days. Benji is on his way to escape them when he finds himself with Nick in the ALC, a community of LGBTQ+ teens who got together before judgement day and are doing what they can to help. This novel is oozing with gore and drool and doesn't shy away from horror. It explores the myriad of emotions and issues around being both gay and trans and I really liked how it held a scutinising torch up to the community. This is a novel that explores so many themes in a fresh way. I was as angry as Benji was with how the fanatics treated him and loved the allegory of how he was made to feel that he was a monster. I don't usually like horror, but this book needed the gore and the angst to make it what it is. I adored the characters, my favourite was Nick but Theo was such a well worked character. who I still have so many conflicting thoughts about even when the book has finished. There were a few moments where I found myself confused and wasn't sure what was happening, but they were fleeting and didn't spoil the narrative for me. I haven't heard of Andrew before, but I'm going to read some of his other works now. Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for providing an arc in return for an honest review. 4.5 Stars from me!

Super exciting and super gory— a lot more gore than I was expecting from a YA novel! That’s not a criticism; Hell Follows With Us is at its best when leaning into its apocalyptic imagery. I loved the concept of this dystopian world, destroyed by a religious cult who want to bring about Judgement Day. The protagonist, Benji, and the ragtag group of queer teens he allies with are all great characters with interesting dynamics.
Occasionally there were parts that to me felt a bit out of place in an apocalyptic story but they didn’t detract from the whole for me. This is an unrelenting story of anger, identity and self-affirmation that has one of the most unusual happy endings I’ve ever encountered. It’s a great time! Definitely recommended for any horror-loving YA readers who like an action-packed adventure.
Thanks to NetGalley for the proof copy.

As someone who grew up LGBT+ in the church, this book was brilliant. A gory, violent, dystopian look at religion and identity. Andrew Joseph White manages to excellently explore ideas of guilt, trauma bonds and cultural vs personal faith. The representation of religious dogma felt uncannily close to some we see nowadays in the real world.

A hard-hitting and visceral read.

Benji, a trans teenage boy, is manipulated by his mother, boyfriend and the cult of radical Evangelicals Christians that have managed to eradicate most of the population on Earth through a virus known as the 'Flood' and attempt to turn Benji into their 'Seraph', a conduit for spreading the virus further.
We follow Benji's escape from the cult and his journey of self-discovery as, even among the post-apocalyptic ruins of his city, it's the most freedom he's ever had.

Learning about love, life and personal freedom through Benji's and the ALC/The Watch's eyes and experiences, is heartbreaking and all too familiar. White's characterisation of the teens attempting to fight for their survival and the depiction of the radical cult, are exceptional in their accuracy.

This was a horror story in a number of expected ways - the gore, the violence - but it's the cruelty that others are willing to show and enact that forms the truly horrific. You can feel the fury - it's palpable through Benji's voice, actions and ultimately, his hope for a better world.
I do think this is a cautionary tale - of extremism, of bigotry - but it should also serve as a warning to those who continually attack our vulnerable youth, they will grow claws and they will fight back.

This was a DNF for me, it just wasn’t capturing me the way a book should. Great premise though. I did really love the way the author made us picture things though!

Hell Followed With Us is a visceral exploration of religious fanaticism and the trauma it creates. It's also incredibly queer and doesn't pull its punches.

We get a post-apocalyptic landscape and a trans teen, Benji, escaping a militarized Christian cult. He is saved by a band of queer kids and this would be a place where he could finally belong... except the cult had infected him with the same virus that had turned the world into what it is now. We get really visceral body horror as Benji slowly transforms into Seraph, the cult's deadliest weapon, all the while he's trying to hide it from his new people.

The book manages to both be fast-paced and take time to show the human things that are important. The premise is clear and the book delivers on it perfectly.

This book is beautifully written and the characters are so well formed that it's hard not to care for them from page one.

The main reason I didn't give it the full 5 stars is because I would have loved more world building. I understand the importance of focusing on Benji, Nick and the rest of the characters first, however I was confused for most of the first half of the book because little detail and background was given about the world they live in.

I usually don't mind reading horror and gore, but this book did have a lot of it. I actually got a little queasy in places. The descriptions were so visceral that I did have to step away from my kindle to get some nasty images out of my head a couple of times.

Overall, I really loved the concept. The main narrative of the dystopia, the monsters, the body horror etc. was very engaging and interesting. The thing I loved most though, was the aspect of found family... Like even in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, queer people are still there for each other and are still fighting assholes like the massive badasses they are!

I am going to start off by saying I really enjoyed this book. There were things that I was confused/not sure of, but I think this was the result of me having to read it over quite a long period of time just because of life. I think this meant there were stretches where I kind of forgot what was going on and then being a bit lost going back into it.

The plot was interesting and really unique which I enjoyed. I have read a lot of books lately where it’s felt like the book is like something I’ve read before but with this book it was more unique from the outside.

The dystopian world was interesting, if sometimes not that well explained or explored. I think because it was set in our world but in the future, there was some reliance on the reader knowing the world but I was fine with that. The political systems were interesting, but I found the religious aspects really confusing (I know next to nothing about religion which was a huge aspect in this book).

The characters were well written. I liked the this book focused on queer teens and lots of different types of queerness which was interesting to read about. I also liked that it did have an autistic character and that this was one of the POVs. I will say some of the side characters were a bit bland and felt like they were only there to drive the plot forwards.

The plot itself was pretty standard but the way it was executed was interesting. I think the plot was well paced and well explored. The end was really good and exciting to read. I personally liked that the end wasn’t all nearly wrapped up and that there were lots of things that were still kind of left open.

Overall, I’m giving this book 3.75 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and Daphne Press for giving me the opportunity to read this!

Now I first want to say, I don't know why I never got around to reading this when it was first published, because wow... what an amazing debut!
Usually I don't really read horror, but this book was absolutely captivating. It was still quite gory though...
The beginning of the book immediately pulled me into the story and made me want to keep reading. No wonder I finished this book in one day. One thing I would have liked though, is if some things about the world building had been explained in more detail. It still left me with some questions about the world the characters found themselves in.

All in all though, great book! Still not sure if horror is the genre for me, but I would definitely read more books from this author.

This is a book for those who like a gory horror and don't get squeamish, for sure. That's... not necessarily me. The book didn't lose my interest at any point. I thought it was an interesting exploration of religion and cults, and with members of the LGBTQIA+ community fighting back against the damage the 'Angels' were doing, this book definitely had a lot to say, through the medium of horror. I found it to be thought provoking and I enjoyed trying to understand the metaphors the author was drawing through this story. The more I think about it, the more powerful I think it is, and at its heart it feels to me like a story of acceptance and where you might go about finding that if only you be yourself, exactly as you are. That being said this is chock full of violence and Benji's transformation into a 'monster' gave me the heebie jeebies but I liked this weary group of teens, their heart, and their bravery. The whole thing was perhaps a little slow paced for me so there were some good and bad experiences from reading this but overall, I'd say give it a shot if you like a little gross with your horror!

I received a free copy of this book. All views are my own.

“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

What a RIDE this book is. As gruesome as it is diverse, ‘Hell Followed With Us’ is a story that has burrowed deeply under my skin.

Benji is on the run from the religious cult that triggered the end of the world, by unleashing the ‘flood’, a virus meant to wipe clean the sins of the world, killing millions of people in the process, and transforming others into monsters known as ‘graces’. Benji, a young trans boy, has been injected with a special kind of this virus, one that’s meant to transform him into Seraph. It’s changing him slowly, liquidating his insides before turning him into the six winged angel. During his escape attempt, he runs into kids who had been at an LGBTQ+ centre when the end of the world came about, and who have banded together for survival reasons. After years of being mistreated, misgendered, and hurt, finally he’s found a group of kids who mostly accept him for who he is….he just needs to avoid recapture by the cult, and try and sort out the whole turning into Seraph situation.

This book begins with both trigger warnings and an explanation into why the author wrote this book, which I so appreciated. Both because this book is definitely not for the faint of heart (it’s stomach churningly disturbing) but, also, to help the reader see why he wrote it this way, as an allegory for the trans kids who walk through hell and back, but are still so deeply worthy of love.

The anger and fear practically reverberate across the pages, understandably so. The frustration that these characters feel, to be trapped in this hellscape of a world, because of a deeply indoctrinated cult, to be going through all this intense pain and suffering due to their actions, is palpable.

It is is heart in the mouth stuff. The stakes are shockingly high - the world is a mess, Benji is on a time frame before his transformation takes over, and there’s overlapping layers of loyalty and distrust between various characters. The urgency is hammered into every chapter, Benji constantly pushing forward without a chance to stop for breath - because what chances are there to take when your insides are liquidating?

This is a book that made me squirm. It made me uncomfortable. It is gripping, grim, and tragic. But, I completely understand why. I could tell it was a book that the author needed to write, and I think it’s a book that many will find catharsis in reading. It’s a gruesome, angry, bloody, love letter to the trans community, while also being a big middle finger to the sectors of religious communities that try to drag them down. A book that tells you to keep on going, despite the pain you might be feeling. It’s a story that’s going to stick with me for a long time.

Thank you to the publishers, and Netgalley, for the copy to review.