Author: Andrew Joseph White
Publisher: Peachtree Teen
Genre: Sci-Fi; Dystopian
Recommended Age: Young Adult (Publisher); Older Teen
Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.
But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.
Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.
Content Warnings:
Graphic: Body Horror, Transphobia, Gore, Gun Violence, Virus that Turns your body inside out
Depicted: Deadnaming, Death of a Parent, Domestic Abuse
Mentioned: Sexual Situations
Tags:
Ecofascist Dystopian Setting, Evangelical Christian Take Over Setting, Monster Virus, Queer Rage, Trans Rage, Kids against Adults,
Review
~ Received as an ARC from NetGalley and Peachtree Teen ~
Hell Followed With Us is a visceral look at the harm of Evangelical Christianity through the lens of horror, ecofascist dystopia, and the trans experience. It aims to drive a knife right into your chest and delivers.
Hell Followed With Us is a masterpiece that weaves Biblical verse and dystopian horror to shock the reader through the horrors of Evangelical Christian tyranny. White will use bible verses to convey the duality of the horror and conflicting feelings our protagonist Benji feels regarding his upbringing. Showing that while Benji has physically escaped The Angelic Movement and their dogmatic belief in it being “god’s will”, the earth is destroyed through the flood - a virus that kills and warps the human body into twisted animalistic creatures called Graces or Abominations, more bone, sinew, and amalgamation of human parts than humanity - he has still work to go in deprogramming himself from their awful doctrine.
This is best exemplified by Benji’s mantra “be good” - his father’s last dying wish after being killed by the Angels while trying to escape with his son. A mantra he struggles to define for himself - is being good a matter of giving in to the Angels’ hellish plans for him, or is it to live as his true self as a boy. And while he knows it is to live freely as himself, his struggle to still define for himself what this means is what makes Benji a truly memorable character.
These passages throughout the text both compliment the situation and horrify the reader. You viscerally feel Benji’s horror and subjugation under those words. Just as much as the changes you witness that happened because of Seraph - a super version of the virus the Angels created, that will eventually turn Benji into a puppet for the Angels to use to wipe out the rest of humanity. You can’t help but cry for Benji’s predicament - even if you have never experienced his traumas - because White masterfully puts onto the page the horror of this kind of tyranny.
And while Hell Followed With Us presents us with trans rage in all its glory through Benji’s suffering and fight against the Angels. It also gives us moments of Trans joy and discovery through Benji’s interactions with the ALC (Acheson LGBTQ+ Centre) - a group of teenagers who rescue him from the Angels campaigning out in the abandoned LGBTQIA+ centre. Through his interactions with the ALC and specifically the leader of The Watch, Nick, Benji grows beyond his upbringing, finds his way in this dystopian horror, and truly defines and becomes the “good” man he wants to be.
Hell Followed With Us is a masterful work of dystopian horror that lets you feel every wound physical and emotional that its characters go through—taking you on an emotional rollercoaster ride of Trans joy and rage. And it is one of the best books I have read in 2022.