I've loved both main books in this series, but I did enjoy the first slightly more. It was still a very solid and enjoyable read though, and I really hope a third will be on the way soon.

Found family at it's best! I cared about everyone in the group (yes, even Noah but less though 😆). The setting feels realistic and for once the actions and ideas of the group are really tailored to the environment. For a more elobarated and insightful review, I kindly forward you to 🔗 KittenInACave Review 🙂‍↕️ Edit: I forgot to mention the goodest girl, Karma!🐶 Who has her own personality and some stellar moments.

If I'd read this book as a teenager, if it had existed when I was a teenager, it would have been something foundational to me, I think. As it stands, I read it as a grown adult and still found that it may actually now be one of my all-time favourites.

Perhaps this is partly due to my own ability to relate to the protagonist, Benji, as I am also a transmasc queer who was raised with heavy religious doctrine and all the baggage that comes with. Maybe it's because I love apocalypse stories and queer stories where the protagonist is (or feels) in some way Outside of humanity, yet still finds their way to the people who'll love them. Who can say.

Hell Followed With Us is described as a YA horror/dystopia, and there are certainly strong themes of religious and body horror throughout, but Benji's interactions with (and acceptance into) the ALC – the queer youth collective who are holding the line for what's left of the city in the face of a devastating bioweapon that destroyed humanity and the fascist cult that released it – almost borders on utopian. They're the calm in the eye of the storm, they're the sort of found family we all kind of want, and they were part of the reason this very bleak story managed to maintain an undercurrent of hope that it just couldn't shake, even when everything was going to shit.

I love this book. If you're on the fence about reading it and you have no qualms about body horror and religious horror, this is your sign to move it up your TBR.