Close-to-home, realistic portrayal of disaffected contemporary youth and the effect on their families.

I admit I chose this title as it resonated with me, with family members in similar positions, shall we say. But the extremes to which McQueen takes his protagonists is darker than I was expecting, and truly gut-wrenching to read.

And it's a debut. A two-handed, with mother and son giving their viewpoints on proceedings. Single Mum Fiona, who's never told her son about the abuse she suffered at the hands of his dad, struggles to put food on the table, struggles to know how to handle her social pariah screen-focused son, struggles when seeing the similarities between the two of them. 19-year-old Jamie never fit in, is awkward and living in a cesspit of a bedroom his mum has long ago stopped cleaning. His only contact with life outside is online friend Lee, a local boy, and now his mum just won't leave him alone about sorting out a CV and getting a job.

Which all sounds quite standard, familiar and frustratingly 'normal'. Until readers get the red flag feeling when Lee enthusiastically talks to Jamie about this guy down in London he's talked to on A Forum (for InCels) who seems to understand them, how nobody likes them, how he can help. Jamie just has to leave his room and he and Lee can get a train down there and start a new life away from the nagging and pressure.

It gets darker and more tense from there. For both Jamie AND Fiona. I couldn't stop listening, just wanting to know that Jamie doesn't do anything stupid, that Fiona doesn't do anything stupid. I identified with Fiona as a mum of boys myself, as a relative of family members who haven't left home, who aren't becoming adults in the traditional way. But I also felt for Jamie who's still such a helpless boy in many ways and is learning the (very) hard way about the real world.

The build-up is fantastic, the family story upsetting and very real. Fiona's mum, her ex, the nasty Seb, they are all very well portrayed by the audiobook narrators and this proved to be an excellent listen with alternating chapters getting you involved with both sides of the story.

Wonderful, confident debut novel.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample audio copy.

This book is written to make you feel uncomfortable & that it did!

Please check the TW’s before reading / listening to this book as it covers a lot of dark subjects. 💔

We follow the story of Jamie, a teenage boy feeling unloved from every angle & ultimately feeling ‘stuck’ in his cess pit room where his mum Fiona leaves him be.
Jamie finds comfort in Lee, who he meets online, so much so that they strike up a close bond & are quite happy to just sit in silence with each other on the other end of the headset at times. As their friendship grows it becomes clear that Lee is out to put Jamie down, make him believe that he is an ‘incel’ (which I did have to look up so I could understand it better). To the point where Jamie is convinced this is correct & agrees to go with Lee to London for the chance of a better life. This is where things take a turn & we explore how toxic their relationship has become & how easily influenced vulnerable people can be.
Ultimately ending in a harrowing experience for all involved.

We also follow Fiona’s journey as she struggles with feeling like she isn’t good enough for Jamie / hasn’t been able to protect him when needed. I really liked the addition of her POV as it really gave us a better insight as to why things are the way they are during the story.

Neither of these characters have had a good time & I felt sadness, dread & unease throughout for everyone involved.

It was quite the insight into a culture that I really was not aware of beforehand! It has been written very well & the audiobook was read very well also. Although I am not Scottish I didn’t feel like I didn’t understand any of it. I would’ve liked to have seen an epilogue at the end so we could almost ‘catch up’ with Jamie & Fiona to see how things had gone however it’s not essential.

This was an audiobook provided by NetGalley.

Due to be released 27/02.

I can't rate this anything other than 5 stars because I litrally was so tired, but I had to stay awake to finish it. This book had me gripped. It was completely intriguing...

Nievely I have to admit the word incel albeit was in my awareness but not to the degree it is now as in I understood the broad prospect but the way in which this book is done it just really puts it all in perspective so well imo!

It's actually a really difficult sad and harrowing even humbling story in moments because, like many books, there is always something you can understand that is relatable, not necessarily your own life but the broader world.

The story of Jamie living in his own world where he feels safe and doesn't really socialise with anyone with exception of his immediate family and online "friends" he meets Lee who seems to be decent to him he believes he has found a genuine friend someone who is just like him they build what he feels is a strong bond but Lee does seem to have alterior motives although there is an underlying friendship there.

When they begin discussing the aspect of incels and go on a journey to meet Seb in London from Glasgow, it turns out to be the biggest mistake Jamie and Lee ever make and completely life changing. This is a real eye opener as to how easy it is for ANYONE to be pulled into something bigger than they realise or ever anticipated. The online community can be far more dangerous than the outside world, yet ironically, this is where Jamie feels safer as going outside he experiences anxiety just crossing the door. Whereas from the comfort of his own home he believes he is always completely safe until his world is turned upside down when he and Lee begin going down the path of looking into this group of incels and taking it further as Jamie is encouraged by the friendship he built with Lee even though something feels off he trusts Lee and doesn't want to ruin that bond which sadly becomes the worst decision for them both....!!!

Fiona, Jamie's mum, dad, and also his granny offered great pov in this audiobook. The backstory of Jamies life gave great detail as to how and why he may have felt and became a little more reclusive and really built on the story as a whole, making this what it is. All the characters were completely brought to life, I was so immersed in this that it brought me to tears at times, made me gasp, and really did have me just totally engaged. Fantasticly written and narrated.

With thanks and much gratitude to Netgalley & Headline Audio for this ELC. Best of luck, Chris McQueer and team on publication. I'm sure this will be a huge hit, absolutely fantastic...!!!

Thank you to Headline Audio, Wild Fire and Chris Mcqueer for this arc.

In Hermit we follow Jamie, an introverted nineteen year old who has become a complete recluse, struggling to leave his bedroom and only being able to socialise through gaming and the online world.
We see Jamie’s story unfold through his and his Mother, Fiona’s, POV as he is introduced to the world of Incels by his friend Lee.

I absolutely LOVED this book. As a woman who has only read literature surrounding incel culture from a woman’s perspective, it was so interesting seeing this from Jamie’s perspective and also realising how truly horrifying incel culture really is.
I think it was a stroke of genius having us hear from Fiona too, especially given their similarities and I think this emphasised how easily young boys are being manipulated.

I also thought the audio and storytelling was engaging and clear

I only wish the book had been just a little bit longer as I feel I am left wanting to know what happens next.

Overall a brilliant book that I will be recommending to everyone!

To note: I will be posting a review on my TikTok Account, good reads and storygraph in the coming days too!

Hermit is a book about a young boy, Jamie, who considers himself to not be like other normal boys his age. Living in his bedroom with only his PlayStation and online friends, Jamie has found himself isolated and dethatched from the world. He has no interest in getting a job, making friends outside of the virtual world or seeking a romantic relationship. He experiences panic attacks when pushed to leave the house and with finding himself becoming more distant from his mother his problematic relationship with his father leaves him feeling even more misunderstood and alone. The book follows both perspectives of Jamie and his mother Fiona as we see how hard life is for Jamie as he becomes even more lost in a dangerous online world and Fiona's past with violence and being a mother as she struggles to find the right way to support her son.

This is an extremely current and thought provoking book. Touching on the dark side of the internet today especially for young boys; the topics around incel culture, red pill thinking, misogyny and violence are explored in a very raw and real way diving into how a young vulnerable male can find himself as the victim of online grooming to a community we see growing in our society. The book puts us in the position of a young man who simply doesn't understand himself, feels different, alone and seeking validation. He doesn't have an outlet for his frustrations and space to explore his mental health in productive way. Reading this you can feel how isolated Jamie is, how stuck in a rut he is and as a reader you can truly feel that sense of dread and feeling defeated. On the flip side reading the perspective of Fiona we can also understand her frustrations, her desires to have a better and closer relationship with her son. Fiona's constant questioning of her parenting abilities, mistakes and trauma's show her to be an extremely relatable character we truly do feel for.

Throughout this book several tough topics are addressed but this sits as an extremely important read. At times deeply disturbing, Chris McQueer didn't shy away from discussing these current rising problems in a very honest and raw manner. We were taken on a journey of feeling empathy, anger, pity and every emotion in between, connecting us to every character even side characters for every character had their role and purpose that fit perfectly well into this story.

I did listen to this book as an Audiobook and I have to say that the narration did so well in brining these characters to life and portraying the characters in way that truly brought them to life.

This is a book I would highly recommend and I'm so grateful for Netgalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this early. I would advise going into this book with the understanding that this a very tough read and trigger warnings for things such as violence, sexual assault, murder, misogyny and incel violence.

I think the cover was a little misleading in that I thought this was going to be some sort of YA book about a teen and his mom. But daaaaaamn this book was dark. It was honestly, excellent. It was a very poignant social commentary exploring incel and red pill culture. It seems to serve as an unfortunately necessary warning for young men that it is very easy to fall into this life and also the long lasting effects it can have on their life. It was grim, dark and ultimately very sad. I loved it

Thanks to Chris McQueer and NetGalley for this ARC!!

I was so thrilled to be approved for this book, having seen a blurb for it on bookseller sites and it was easily one of my most anticipated reads of this year, it didn’t disappoint.

This was such a darkly necessary book for the current time period. In a time where this lesser-mentioned kind of grooming is turning into a legion of “red pill” extremists. Don’t get me wrong, this book was a very hard read at points. But it left me thinking about how a focus on guiding and nurturing young people at a crucial age rather than the “let them get on with it” attitude can protect them from being left vulnerable to extremist views.

This was a solid 4 star read all the way through, but having now got to the end, it's deserving of 5.
As much as I'm too old to use such phrases, I'm going to... it gave me all the feels.
One minute I was angry, the next sad, then laughing, then gobsmacked.
There was also the odd bit of disbelief and frustration when the chapter finished at a crucial point.
The narration was perfect, and I genuinely think it's a story I got more from, for having listened to it.
I was pulled in at the mention of INCELS, but this book exceeded my expectations.
Emotional, tense and dark.
It's definitely a good one.

I cannot tell you the sheer joy of discovering that Chris McQueer has produced a novel! I was a big fan of both short story collections (‘Hings’ and ‘HWFG’ - and as I type this I realise we seem to have an H theme happening here), so I dropped everything to read ‘Hermit’. First off, I loved the premise. I don't think most people are aware of the intricacies of incel culture. McQueer gives a good overview in a way that's accessible, heart-wrenching and oftentimes highly humorous. Having said that, some of the content is also deeply disturbing and upsetting. I particularly appreciate that he writes in a mix of English and Scots. Even Scots speakers can get bogged down reading dense text in the language, so this is my preferred route to authenticity without taking me out of the narrative. The plot is frighteningly plausible, with a cast of all-too-familiar Scottish characters. Jamie is a vulnerable young man who feels disenfranchised. McQueer really lays bare how easy it is for these young men to be targeted and manipulated. What I appreciated most about the book is that it takes some serious subject matter and lets us have a right good look at it, in an accessible manner. Wee guys will love this book and that is why Chris McQueer has played another bloody blinder. Chapeau, big chap!

I enjoyed the audiobook narration by the author and Scarlett Mack.

Hermit was a vastly more shocking and disturbing story than I expected.

Delivering the title as a two hander between Jamie (Hermit) and his mother Fiona was a stroke of genius though, it gives the reader the insight into the lonely wee boy, scared of stepping out of his filthy pit of a bedroom, let alone out of doors. Through Fiona we discover that Jamie has always lived just on the outskirts of life, from age 11 he wanted to detach from the world. A solitary soul. He loves his Ma, and his granny, and he hates himself for snapping at them when they encourage hygiene and life outside of that room.

From Jamie’s pov we learn that the world is terrifying, he doesn’t care that he stinks, there’s nobody to smell him anyway, he sleeps his worries away, emerges for microwave food and hides on his PlayStation. When he meets Lee online it seems like there’s hope, the pair strike a close bond, Jamie is delighted to have found a friend, a reason, but Lee is an incel, he soon convinces Jamie that he must be an incel. As they delve deeper, it’s striking how easy it is to disappear down the rabbit hole, swallow the pill, however you want to determine it, there’s a place for everyone online, a place where predators lurk ready to catch their prey.

From the moment Lee “converts” Jamie the language and the story become distressing, repulsive and malignant, yet the author has managed to lighten the load a bit with a lot of the dark humour that I only know Glasgow to hold.

I predict awards!

4.5 🌟
The audio narration by Chris McQueer and Scarlett Mack were perfect. They brought to life the spirit and vernacular of east end of Glasgow 🎧

Huge thanks to Headline Audio via NetGalley for the opportunity to review this ELC 🎧

Thank you to Headline Audio + Wildfire for approving my NetGalley ALC! As soon as I read the synopsis for Hermit, I knew I wanted to read it. The topic of - incels - is not something I know much about so I was morbidly fascinated to see a novel written from that POV. What I thought was clever was how the chapters were from Jamie's POV and his Mum—Fiona's. Fiona gave context to how Jamie got to where he is, the situation he grew up in and how the distance between them kept growing despite living in the same house.

Author Chris McQueer voices Jamie, the main character, and Scarlett Mack voices Fiona, Jamie's Mum. Both narrations made for a truly immersive listen. The book is set in Scotland with Jamie and his mum living in Glasgow, so having Scottish narrators with easy-to-listen-to voices kept me in the story the entire time I was listening.

I would have loved an epilogue catching up with the characters after the fact, I'm hoping that they were able to work through it together and independently and that they're in a happier place, thriving. Fiona deserved better from everyone in her life!

Check the trigger warnings before you pick this one up because it gets quite dark. TW for suicide, rape, sexual assault, murder, incel violence and misogyny from the start and throughout.

Hermit is out on 27th February 2025!!!