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Book Review: Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Cover art for Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White.

Peachtree Teen, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1682633243

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Hell Followed with Us is an incredible and original book, but it is not an easy read. It is a scream of rage. Make sure to read the author’s content warnings at the beginning of the book.

 

Benji is a trans boy injected with a virus that will turn him into a genocidal monster, a Seraph, for a doomsday cult, the Angels. He tries running away but is captured by the cult’s death squad. A group called the Watch, queer teens inhabiting their destroyed teen center for LGBTQ+ youth, attacks and kills everyone in the death squad except Benji, who is offered refuge by the leader, Nick, an autistic gay boy. Nick knows Benji is the Seraph, but hides it to protect him, believing that his powers will allow him to control the Graces, monstrous creatures made from infected bodies trained by the Angels to attack nonbelievers.

 

The Watch successfully attacks a church with Benji’s help. Benji discovers his fiance, Theo, is hiding in the church, and visits him there, only to find that the visit was used by the Angels as an opportunity to burn down the home of the Watch. As Benji continues to physically disintegrate into the Seraph, he makes a plan with Nick to pretend to return and cooperate with the Angels, despite their murder of his father, transphobia, and religious extremism. While the first plan is botched and Benji turns fully into a Seraph, a second plan unleashes a bloodbath on the Angels and frees the Watch from fear and persecution..

 

Andrew Joseph White wrote this for trans kids facing a hostile world, to give them a mirror of a trans boy who fights back. But it’s not necessary to be trans or queer to be wowed by it.  So many of the major characters were queer that I got to see many different aspects of how they characters experienced their queerness, and it also didn’t become the only factor defining their identities. I loved the found family feeling of the members of the Watch, looking out for each other in a hostile world.

 

It’s difficult to imagine how hard-right evangelical Christianity in this country could get more repressive and violent than it currently is, but somehow White takes it to an even more terrifying extreme. Highly recommended.

 

 

Contains: transphobia, deadnaming, misgendering, graphic violence, domestic, child, and religious abuse, body horror

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on December 18, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Howl by Shaun David Hutchinson

 

Howl by Shaun David Hutchinson

Simon & Schuster, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-5344-7092-7

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Virgil Knox is a gay teen who has moved from Seattle to live with his grandparents in his father’s rural hometown in the South with his father while his parents resolve their divorce. Following a party, he finds himself in rags with bloody claw marks and a bite mark, certain he has been attacked by a monster but unable to remember what happened or how. He is told by multiple people it didn’t happen. Captured on video, he goes viral and receives a lot of hate and nasty jokes from other students. The only class he cares about is theater, and a student from that class, Tripp, and his cousin, Astrid are his only friends. As the cuts heal, he notices his body is changing in disturbing ways. His classmates Finn and Jarrett swing from being friendly to being cruel. Virgil is afraid there is a monster inside him trying to get out. The question is, will he become a monster or master it?

 

This is a supremely uncomfortable book to read. While there is no explicit description of rape the description and narrative around the main character’s attack is suggestive of trauma caused by sexual assault combined with gaslighting (it is unclear what actually occurred as he is blackout drunk). There’s self-harm, body dysmorphia, hazing, severe bullying and cyberbullying. The town’s treatment of Virgil is the real horror of the story.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on November 26, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Poesy the Monster Slayer by Cory Doctorow, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller

Poesy the Monster Slayer by Cory Doctorow, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller.

Every page of this book made me laugh.

Cory Doctorow is the author of Pirate Cinema, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Little Brother, three books I love, among many others. He’s also an activist for the EFF. This is totally different from his previous work that I am familiar with. It is a sweet picture book about a little girl who has done her research into how to defeat monsters and waits until bedtime to take action. Poesy is not afraid of the monster under the bed and doesn’t want to befriend it– she has creative plans to use what she has at hand to defeat them, and puts them into action, much to her exhausted parents’ dismay. It is short, funny, sweet, and easy to understand, with colorful, slightly cartoony illustrations. Poesy is determined to save the day, tiara in place, armed with bubblegum perfume and a butterfly net.

For early educators, here’s an opportunity to define parts of a book near the beginning of the book as Poesy and her dad debate the beginning, middle, and title page of the monster book he is reading her.

A side note, both Poesy and her mother are Black, adding a little diversity to children’s book illustration.

Highly recommended for children of all ages.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on June 21, 2022 by , Reply
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