Meet Benji, a trans guy on the run from the fundamentalist terrorist cult that raised him and turned him into the worlds most dangerous bio-weapon. Escaping is only half the challenge, the virus is literally eating him alive, rebuilding his body into a terrifying creature called Seraph. His only chance lies with the other teenagers he meets in the ruins of the city's LGBTQ center called the ALC. But can he really trust their leader Nick with his secret?

CW from the author’s website: Hell Followed With Us is a horror novel about fundamentalism, hatred, and the beauty in ugly spaces. There is a thematic focus on gore, mutilation, and other violations of the human body.
Violence (explicit gore, arson, murder and mass murder, warfare, terrorism)
Body Horror
Transphobia (misgendering, dead-naming with name written out repeatedly, threats of transphobic violence, forced detransition)
Religious abuse/Christian terrorism, combined with elements of eco-fascism
Abusive parents and domestic partner violence (including returning to an abusive partner and victim self-blame)
Self-injury (including attempted suicide of a side character)
Emetophobia (vomiting) warning throughout

Hell Followed With Us is an intense read about a group of queer kids just trying to stay alive in a world that is actively trying to kill them. Even before the Angels unleashed armageddon in the for of a terrible plague that killed most of the 9 billion people on earth, they already faced a world that was set up against them as queer youth.

My queer book club chose this book as our May selection and I think I’m safe to say I wasn’t quite ready for this book despite reading the description of it and wanting to read it. I did like this book, the story was page turning, the characters were very well done, and I couldn’t put it down. It was scary and it felt entirely too possible. The body horror is very visceral but it isn’t done just to be sensational. It’s appropriate and you can read it as a metaphor for the damage done to trans folks by the world at large. It was really interesting to hear Benji talk about being trans in a post-apocalyptic world. How he’d forgotten that it didn’t hurt to be trans, it hurt to be trans in a world that was designed to harm trans people.

I am not autistic, so my thoughts on this are the thoughts of an allistic person reading a trans character, but I really appreciated the insight that Andrew was able to offer through Nick. I got so attached to him. He was a queer autistic teenager struggling to lead other scared teenagers through the nightmare of a destroyed world. I appreciated learning more about his struggles to mask and the way Benji saw his struggles and how hard it was. The bead lizards were so evocative for me. I can remember making them, and the scenes with them felt so much more vivid to me. There were a lot of small things like that and it really anchored this story to reality and through that made it feel more real, for better and for worse at times.

I appreciated the development of the side characters as well, not everyone is just going to seamlessly step into the role of a gun carrying warrior, and the teens at the ALC accepted that. I think it was Aisha who was part of the watch and she kept her cool under pressure but afterwards would fall apart a little bit. The rest of them made the space for that to happen. The kids at ALC were the best part of this story, their created family wasn’t perfect, but they looked out for each other and protected the vulnerable parts without devaluing them. Everyone found ways to contribute. Without them, I don’t think I could have handled this story. They were a much needed safe place.

This is a tough book, but I liked it. But I just want to make sure folks know the content warnings beforehand. Use your own best judgment for if you’re in a good headspace for a novel like this one.