Hell Followed With Us is one of those books that lives up to all its hype! I was lucky enough to be approved via NetGalley, but I also joined the book tour hosted by TBR and Beyond Tour!
Hell Followed With Us is a YA horror read that came out on the 7th of June. This is Andrew Joseph White’s debut novel (although he has published shorter pieces of fiction before) and was published by Peachtree. It’s 416 pages long and is set in the US, after a cult managed to unleash an apocalyptic disease that wiped out the better part of humanity and created and mutated most of those remaining into monsters.
Benji was infected by the Flood; a disease created by right-wingers to cleanse the population of all sinners. He was selected with a particular strain, one that would turn him into a being that could control the monsters created by the flood itself. As he attempts to escape with his dad, he finds himself with a group of teenagers who are also trying to survive. As the cult comes back for him; he has to figure out how to help defend this new community from what’s to come.
When requesting this from NetGalley, I was just thinking about that gorgeous cover! But honestly, I don’t think I’ve read a book like this one before! I can’t imagine a person describing all those transformations. The detail is just insane!
The representation and all the nuance were phenomenal! The fact that we have all these queer characters, and we have different pronouns included was wonderful to read.
The plot itself was also incredibly different! I did not see that coming from Theo or Nick, but at the same time that was so well done that it didn’t feel like it was out of the blue. Despite all that blood and gore, we technically have a happy ending, but it’s also not entirely happy because of all that’s happened leading up to it.
I can’t wait to see everyone’s art after they’ve read the book! I’m still having a hard time picturing the Graces, and I would love to see the takes on that!
I’m privileged enough to not need to focus on trigger warnings, but I do want to say that there is a lot of gore, misgendering deadnaming, and religious abuse! I would highly recommend that you take a look at the trigger warnings once just to be prepared; I don’t think there was anything senseless, for the sake of it, but what you would expect from a religious cult in a post-apocalyptic world.