If only I’d had this to read in middle school instead of the Left Behind series 💀💀

This was my first time reading Andrew Joseph White. After hearing abundant praise for his body of work I did have high hopes for this book that were unfortunately dashed. I was definitely disappointed with this read; I felt it fell short of the glory of its premise. (Romans 3:23?)

But that’s not to say it was all bad — I have some positive notes.

One of the first things I noticed was what felt like accurate depictions of teenagers. Where some YA novels overplay the childishness of their teen characters and others exaggerate their maturity, White captured an honest balance that neither disrespected the intellect of his characters nor forced them into artificial adulthood.

Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is in its diversity and representation, featuring inclusivity across gender, neurodiversity, race, religion, and sexuality. It’s powerful that so many different people can see their identity represented here!

Before I get into more of my critiques on the book, I do want to acknowledge my cognizance of this book’s age range. I recognize that, as an adult, I am not the “target” audience. However, I read and enjoy my share of children’s and YA books! My expectations are slightly different between books written for YA and adult audiences, but I do still have expectations. A book being YA does not exempt it from critique or excuse writing weaknesses.

It’s no secret that religious trauma is one of my favorite themes in fiction — and this book certainly delivered on that! But it sometimes veered into being a bit heavy-handed. There were a lot of Bible verses. On one hand I do appreciate how the inclusion of scripture enhances the depiction of religious trauma by providing foundation and context for story elements, but at times it felt like a substitute for independent worldbuilding. I struggled to conceptualize in-world logic for the cult’s beliefs and practices and, despite my best efforts, I never felt like I arrived at a satisfactory level of understanding of the world. I still couldn’t fully explain the Flood or Seraph to you. Somewhat of an explanation finally crystallized near the end but it still didn’t fully click into place for me. The concepts of the cult and the apocalypse are so enticing but unfortunately their exposition loitered in superficial territory. I wanted and needed so much more by way of worldbuilding to make for a satisfying read.

I also wanted and needed more when it came to the characters. Even though we spent the majority of the book inside Benji’s head, I still never felt like I got to know him. I loved seeing how his religious trauma impacted him and hearing about his personal experience as a trans boy, but when it came to his thoughts, feelings, and motivations, I felt a bit of a disconnect. The supporting characters were even less developed, and as such it was incredibly difficult to believe any of their relationships whether romantic, platonic, or familial. The romance/love triangle(?) elements in particular read as stale and forced.

As for the plot… [gestures broadly] I don’t know what to say, and I didn’t know what to say while reading. The plot suffered for the weaknesses in worldbuilding and character development; I think those aspects needed to be quite strong in order for the plot to have made sense and really materialize. The strong opening of the book quickly gave way into a sluggish middle which finally picked up again towards the ending before falling off one last time. There were also just too many things that didn’t make sense and came across as plot holes.

But damn, the religious trauma was good. There was a passage on p385 in my edition that captured religious deconstruction quite well. The book also speaks to the dangers of Christian extremism, racism, fascism, and transphobia. The gore and body horror are intense (complimentary) and may even be too much for some readers. (That being said, even though reading usually results in cinematic mental renderings for me, I actually struggled to clearly visualize a lot of this book.)

Overall, and much to my dismay, I didn’t really enjoy Hell Followed with Us. But I am so glad this book exists, especially for the younger readers who yearn to see their identities represented and embraced, and for the readers who are trapped inside their parents’ religion and need to see hope of liberation. I do think I would have eaten this up in middle school or high school!

Even though I didn’t care for the novel and wouldn’t actively recommend it to most readers, I am still planning to try the author’s other work!