Horror like you've never known it before
Hell Followed With Us & The Spirit Bares Its Teeth reviews
Successful horror nearly always reflects elements that haunt and traumatise us in our real lives. I decided to call this review(s) ‘Horror like you’ve never known it before’ because Andrew Joseph White’s writing is truly unlike any other I have read. However, the allure of White’s novels lies in his talent to take something unfortunately so commonplace in the world today and reveal it for the upsetting and grotesque monster it really is.
While the author has confirmed that his books are standalone stories with no multiverse crossover, it felt right to write about Hell Followed With Us and The Spirit Bares Its Teeth in the same review. The books share no character or narratives but they do both explore LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent experiences on a background of classic and innovative horror.
Hell Followed With Us
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5
Published in 2022, Hell Followed With Us takes place at the end of the world as we know it. Set in an undisclosed dystopian future, a religious cult has plunged the world into a dark and sick reality with sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji at its centre. The book begins on the night of Benji’s escape from the cult and his chaotic introduction to the ALC (Acheson LGBTQ+ Centre). Among this group of queer teens is Nick, an autistic boy with a deadly shot who learns the secret Benji is most desperate to keep: the cult has turned him into a bioweapon.
Aside from the obviously uplifting message of fighting back against your oppressors, the horror elements of Hell Followed With Us are expertly used to represent hard-to-read topics such as body dysmorphia, transphobia and living up to expectations that have been thrust upon you. Both Benji and Nick are representations of this, Benji fighting what the cult turned him into and then using it against them in the end and Nick learning to be a fearless leader even when he feels like falling apart.
I can’t relate to every experience portrayed in Hell Followed With Us but I do understand the fear and exhaustion of hiding parts of yourself even you don’t fully understand. I’m also all too familiar with certain people using their beliefs as an excuse to control something they don’t understand. Even more, I can relate to the flawed character of Benji, the mistakes that he makes, the decisions he is too afraid to fully think through before it’s too late. He is not a perfect YA hero and that makes this world which does not exist feel even more real.
There are so many reasons Hell Followed With Us will make you uncomfortable. The visceral horror with body-fusing creatures like the Graces which could have stepped right out of a Silent Hill game; the confrontation that this world is not that much different from our own; the face-slapping reality that this kind of representation of queer and neurodivergent people is still so lacking. Horror is often used to represent parts of these communities and while Hell Followed With Us does do this, it is unapologetically queer and neurodiverse, holding nothing back. It was horrific, refreshing, disgusting, uplifting, heartbreaking and inspirational.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5
I don’t believe I’ve ever come across a book that was more me. Victorian England, spirits, queer characters, gut-churning horror; and yet, I was not prepared for the experience of reading The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. Set in 1883, White’s second YA novel follows Silas Bell, a trans teen trapped in a life that has him destined to become an obedient Speaker wife. Desperate to escape this future, Silas risks it all to obtain the one thing that would win him his freedom. Alas, he is unsuccessful and instead is sent to Braxton Sanitorium and Finishing School to overcome what he’s been told is “veil sickness.”
Of course, there is no such thing as veil sickness. Queer and neurodivergent readers will probably be able to guess right from the beginning that the “sickness” refers to whatever makes these young people “different” from the rest of London’s society. Even if this doesn’t occur to you immediately, the reveal near the novel's end comes with a haunting familiarity. Having these characters exist in a world where violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits is uncomfortably ironic. Why are the Speakers more accepting of the existence of these individuals as mediums and not trans or gay or sexually active? Because as mediums, they can be controlled - the rest must be erased for this control to prevail.
The desperation to hold onto this control reaches such sickening levels but is beautifully alluded to throughout the novel in pages of distorted and disrupted consciousness. These sections of The Spirit Bares Its Teeth are enough to demonstrate White’s capability to delve into any area of horror that fits the narrative. It really feels like reading the thoughts of a disembodied spirit. The visceral horror in this novel, however, comes from multiple surgical scenes and metaphors from both the main character and those intending to do him harm. It’s such a clever way to explore the need for certain brutality (such as surgery) vs thoughtless butchery.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth highlights not only the horrific treatment of queer and neurodivergent people but also the historical (and ongoing) oppression of women. Silas is a trans boy but the gender he was assigned at birth leaves him vulnerable to society’s true monsters. Initially, I thought this was perhaps why I felt closer to Silas than Benji in Hell Followed With Us. It took me entirely too long to realise it was because of Silas’s neurodivergence; his rabbit heart, his overwhelming emotions, his need to physically move these emotions out of his body somehow, even his hyper fixations (although for Silas, his hyper fixations are medical processes). Despite the horror that persists, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth gives us hope for the life we dare not even dream of.
The horror still to come
I love certain books because of their characters, I love others because of the worlds they suck us into. And sometimes, I love a book because it was written by a certain author. Hell Followed With Us and The Spirit Bares Its Teeth have become these books. I am a fan of horror but Andrew Joseph White’s books are so much more than this. They are raw, real and relatable in some of the most horrific ways possible. I wait with bated breath to read what White will write next.
Check out my other book reviews…
I Who Have Never Known Men Review
Or, for something a little different…
5 Books That Changed Me as a Writer
I’ll Never Let Them Hurt You, I Promise #1