Hell Followed With Us

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, 416 pages.

Benji is sixteen, trans, and on the run from the fundamentalist cult that raised him, caused the apocalypse, and infected him with a virus that is slowly turning him into a monster. Benji is found and taken in by the ALC, the remnants of the Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, who are now banding together to try and survive the apocalypse and the cult that is trying to finish the job that the plague they unleashed started. A job that Benji was made to help them complete. But he figures that if he's being transformed into a monster anyway, he may as well make them suffer for it. 

For a debut novel this is pretty strong. If this was Kara's book club I would definitely have some items in the "Don't buy it" category, but it overall read very smoothly and was genuinely spooky and/or deeply disturbing in a lot of places. It's also, fair warning, very gross. There's a whole lot of body horror in this novel, and I would definitely say it's not for the squeamish. 

Side Note: this cover is so cool, I love the flat style and colors