The author uses lots of scripture from the Bible and teachings from these cult leaders and they’re either at the beginning of each chapter and/or interspersed in the chapter. When it was mid sentence, it could throw me off, or sometimes it felt very repetitive. Also with the pacing, I felt it would be a lot going on and then it would slow down to day to day life and it could be jarring.

and it started off so well? i don't really remember what it was but there were some scenes of trans rep in the beginning that made me cry and i was sure i would give this five stars and probably never move on with my life. I’m almost certain YA horror has never been this good. Striking in both narrative and premise, its no wonder I’ve heard nothing but praise for this book.

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A long, sustained scream to the various strains of anti-transgender legislation multiplying around the world like, well, a virus.” — The New York Times I need to write a proper review and I want, no scratch that, I NEED this book on my personal bookshelves! So damn good!

the plot comes in two forms: it either doesn't move or it moves so fast i barely know what's going on. However, while these aspects are horrific in their own right, I had the strongest reaction to all the world-building around a fictional pandemic. Descriptions of dead and mangled bodies? No problem! Mentions of masks? No thank you. Encountering my lived reality of existing in a pandemic in a fictional story was somehow scarier than anything else. Burning It All Down with Queer RageNow to the pacing and religious overload. The pacing is all over the place. Some parts drone on and on while other seem to skip to something entirely new leaving the reader confused as to how we got there. The repetition of phrases (typically in 3s) got old real fast. I understand the purpose, repetition can build suspense and engage the reader, but it’s wildly over used in this book. The interjections of religious script - sometimes mid sentence - doesn’t help the matter. I understood going into this book that religion was a massive part of it but the constant bible verses was overwhelming and off putting. This book made me feel as understood and validated as I was unsettled and pissed off. With vivid prose and a mirror held up to the ugliest parts of ourselves, Andrew Joseph White is poised to become a defining voice of our generation.” –H.E. Edgmon, author of The Witch King

bottom line: i think a younger audience might get more out of the book than i did. while it does have a lot of gore and violence it is very much YA - from plot structure to character motivations, it's definitely something targeted towards a more teenager-esque audience. A furious, queer debut novel about embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors. it's always the books i buy a physical copy of without reading them in another medium first. why is that. why does the book god hate me that much. Benji is a sixteen-year-old trans boy on the run from the cult that wants to turn him into both a weapon and a married woman. The world is a dystopian hellscape due to climate change and an evangelical eco-fascist group that unleashed a virus that turns people into monsters. In hopes of controlling those monsters (because God has ordained it...) the group has turned to medical experimentation with Benji as the successful subject. A unique, dark, gripping and deeply moving YA horror-fantasy book. It not only creeped me out but also made me sob. A Must Read for The Pride Month.HELL FOLLOWED WITH US is a book about queer kids trying to live long enough to grow up; the world presented here is often cruel, and so are the people within it. While I love setting things on fire, if any of these topics will burn you, please stay safe.

I’ll be the first to say I don’t read a lot of post-apocalyptic stories, it’s not a genre Im usually drawn to, but what I really liked about this is that it’s an end of the world story not necessarily about the end, it’s about the people. Yes there are...vivid descriptions of guts and rot and disease that brought the world down, but at its heart it’s a story driven by humanity and the resilience of people. All the characters were forced to grow up to fast, to make soldiers out of children, and the fact that there are times in the story where despite everything going on they still manage to laugh and be KIDS? That contrast with all the brutality of the worldbuilding, and the fact that those aspects blend and contrast so well together? I love that so much. I do think theres an audience for this, one I hoped I would be a part of but sadly am not. If your interested in reading please be aware of how dark and gorey it is, because I’m a horror fan but this was to much for me. I will say as someone with severe religious trauma, it was healing to see a trans boy wipe out hundreds of evangelicals It was spring, and the flowers were blooming, white, white, white, white, white. It was spring and the corpses were swaying, eyes open, white, white, white, white, white.

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This book was STUNNING. It was horrific. It was brutal and twisted and made me want to throw up and claw my hair and cry... and I loved it so much. It was horror, but not jump-scare, there's-someone-in-the-house horror - oh no, this was pure gore and body horror, combined with some of the best LGBTQ+ rep I've read in a while. Everyone was so incredibly queer and messy and traumatised... I'm obsessed! at the end of it i realized that there was a love triangle going on. and with at the end i mean when i finished it and saw other reviewers say that they didn't care about the love triangle - lol, my bad, i guess i didn't either. title from famous prophets (stars) by car seat headrest Language: English Words: 2,055 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 2 Kudos: 15 Bookmarks: 3 Hits: 135