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
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