This book wasn't a normal alien invasion book. It made me squirm. It is gory, gross but cleverly written. It's one i won't forget, put it that way.

Trigger warnings for You Weren't Meant to be Human include: pregnancy, suicidal ideation, self harm, transphobia & ableism; violence, sex, and abuse. There are other triggers too so it's worth looking them up.
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This is the fourth book I've read from AJW now. I swear he puts something addictive in his books honestly. There's just something about them. I'm not the biggest reader of horror, and I typically don't like books with body horror. However, that being said I've loved every one of Andrew's novels.
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One consistent thought I had throughout this is 'what fucked me up so bad that I enjoyed this?' It's definitely a book that's going to stay with me for a long time. Both because of the horror aspect, but also because of all of the real-world implications and events it discusses.
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I knew this wasn't going to be the average story with a trans MC that has a 'feel good' happy ending. Because why should it be? Not everyone gets that. Not everyone gets a supportive family or a good support network. Sometimes people get an abusive partner and a support network who only cares because they are duty bound to.
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There's just something so visceral and real about this novel. It takes the darkest thoughts, the darkest parts of someone and lays them bare. It exposes all the things that someone wouldn't willingly share. It doesn't shy away from the difficult and the brutal topics. It's by no means a gentle book.
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Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an ARC copy of this book.

Diversity: Autistic MC , mental health, intrusive thoughts, gender dysphoria
Queerness : Queer Mc , trans masc mc , trans fem sc , non binary sc
Content warning: Blood , death , grief , cannibalism ( this is right at the but BUTS ITS GRAFFIC) oh and bugs - so many bugs

I was going to mark this read as a 4 stars but then I read it all in once Sitting and the ending had be REELING from the book . No joke I gasped and covered the screen so I didn't have to read more accidentally. This book is graphic and drives its point home HARD. IT cracks open some really serious points from gender dysphoria, mental illness , the struggles of the autistic community and even graphic intrusive thoughts that are rarely touched upon in literature

This book was kinda like a crash- you know you shouldn't be looking but you can't look away.

I have two other of this author's books on my tbr however this is my first from him -

This book is one I would recommend but to select people - its dark , tense and I feel you have to be a type of person ( queer and mentally ill) to be able to relate or understand the mc

Bravo honestly- its been a while since I read a 300 page book in one sitting
Insane

I hardly know where to begin with this one. It left me feeling so many things: devastated, horrified, and deeply moved.

At its core, this is a raw and tragic depiction of the inner and outer turmoil of a trans man forced into pregnancy against his will. Layered on top of that is the nightmarish setting of a cult worshipping The Hive, a grotesque pile of worms and flies that exist only to control and consume.

This book shocked me at every turn and left me reeling by the end. It is brutal, haunting, and I think an extremely important piece of literature to read.

Releasing September 9th.

Crane is one fucked up guy and this really is his book. It's absolutely disgusting. It's devastating. It's violently repulsive (Chapter 34 I'm looking at you, I was engrossed and ready to finish this book but I had to put it down when I reached that part). It's a book where almost everything awful happens but that's all in service of the story and character. There is no part of me left wondering if things could have gone differently, this was undeniably the only way out Crane could have or would have taken. I adored it in it's abhorrence and can not recommend it enough.

I've been excited for this book since it was announced and it absolutely lived up to the hype I built for it. Andrew Joseph White is one of my absolute favourites authors - Hell Followed With Us is what got me into horror - and him writing adult horror has created an absolute masterpiece.

And with pregnancy as body horror? Yes! To me pregnancy is nightmarish and I loved reading a story that treated it as such. I loved how Crane had all the facts that Sophie had memorised, and how he described the feeling of the pregnancy throughout the book as something intruding on his body. I also absolutely loved how things went after birth - I think a worse author would maintain Crane's disgust with the baby, with the creature that was in him, to avoid falling into a kind of 'maternal instincts take over/anti-abortion/anti-trans' situation that an even worse author would turn this into. AJW surprised me by having Crane be possessive as protective of the baby. Yet it actually balanced so well with everything about Crane that was built up - we know Crane does care from the way his opinion over Jess evolved through the book, and how he helped her get away, from the way he forced Aspen and Birdie to hate him to protect them and Luna, how he helped Stagger with communication and cutting out a worm. He cares about people in a way that directly relates to not wanting them to suffer at the hands (wormy aplendages?) of the hive. Of course he would want to keep his daughter from the hive's plans to infest her, and of course he would save her in the most physically repulsive and disgusting way imaginable.

I also just loved Crane as a character. I loved that he suffers out of needing others to give permission. How he wants awful things. How he wants to get out. How he doesn't talk because it's just too much. How that meant in one moment he wanted to talk he just couldn't. How when he finally gave himself permission to do something it was sticking his face into boiling water. I loved how raw and messy and awful he was, all whilst still being a characteri could love and resonate with and root for.

I also thought the ending was perfect. There's a hint of hope, an idea that Crane may get out and get what he needs (because it was never the permission and cruelties of a festering pile of bugs). Yet it's in a way that doesn't negate everything he went through, the hope couldn't have come earlier. It's only now that maybe things might start going differently for Crane.

All in all, there is nothing about this book that could make it any better than what it is. It's an absolutely awful masterpiece and I'd encourage everyone to indulge in it's abhorrence.

I want to start by saying- I think this book has an important message that deserves to be read by millions..
But I do not think the writing is currently at the stage where it should be published.
The opening scene- while I can understand how it plays it’s part in the narrative and main character’s sexual relationship, specifically regarding gender and the treatment of their body, it comes across as edgy for the sake of it and loses all meaning. It’s a bit of an eye roll.
A specific sentence ending in ‘acting like an autist’ was also an eye roll. This is coming from a fellow autistic.
There’s so much potential here, but I currently think the writing is shaky and missing the mark.
I understand you don’t want the characters to be humanised, which of course makes the reader detached from them- however, you need another catch to draw the reader in.
Again- the idea is genius and I love the gore and bleakness, but I think rewrites are needed. At this stage, I would not recommend to anybody.

"Somewhere deep inside him, it is a shock to Crane that this creature dies. That it is capable of something as mundane as dying. But as the worm spasms and leaks fluid between their fingers, and Stagger's chest heaves, he thinks, of course it does. Why else would it be so hungry? Why else would the hive be so capable of anger, which is just another word for fear?"
5☆|5

This is probably in the top three of the most disturbing books I have ever read in my life - and will ever read if we are being realistic - and somehow that helps make it perfect to me. For his adult debut, Andrew Joseph White takes us to a world invaded by worm aliens, but where the true horror comes from pregnancy and the loss of bodily agency.

We are going to follow Crane - yes, like the bird - a twenty-one-year-old mute autistic trans man who is trying to survive in that fucked up world. He joined the “hive” a few years back, a community that follows an alien made of worms that offers them salvation in exchange for a few corpses and loyalty. Who offers Crane a chance to transition and to stop speaking. Crane lives with Levi, who is a bit of an asshole. Levi, who got him pregnant 3 months ago. Pregnant with a child that the hive now demands, despite Crane's strong objection to keeping it.

This book is brutal. This book is violent. This book is disturbing. It comes with a list of trigger warnings that would make several people run away, and even though it made it to the list of my favourite books, I am well aware that this is not a novel that I can recommend to everybody. But somehow that violence feels necessary. The horror of this book hits us in the face, it insinuates in our bones, it haunts our minds. I am going to carry this book with me for a long time as it carved its place directly into my brain.

White’s writing is as phenomenal as usual. The prose was splendid and breathtaking at times. It allows the story to shine even more. To rot even more inside our brains. The author takes his character and brings out the absolute horror hiding inside their thoughts in a magnificent way. It is everything. It has probably ruined my brain chemistry. If he was already excellent in his young adult books, taking off the limits that were imposed by the public age only allows him to be even greater, in a creepy kind of way. To be even more crude, even more unsettling. And that was majestic to see. And even when he is not particularly trying to bring out that horror, the prose in this one often made me stop dead in my tracks to reconsider everything. I very specifically think of this one quote:

"He is, however, afraid of dying a woman. He is afraid that he won't be allowed to die at all”

It is not that unusual for me to say, but I am deeply in love with AJW’s writing style and would probably read his grocery list at the point. And somehow, the prose was not even my favourite part of the novel. This beautiful prose is the mere vessel of a story that made me want to scream at my walls several times, only to be left facing the realisation that I had no voice left, being absolutely consumed from the inside by the raw horror of this. Reading an Andrew Joseph White book is like being at least a bit horrified all book long and wanting to scream - and reviewing an Andrew Joseph White’s book is being left staring at the blank wall in pure shock while trying to process all the feelings, and to express them in a way that is not just a scream, but that’s another subject entirely. And, well, the themes in this book...

Pregnancy as horror. Because at the end of the day, that is what this is all about. Pregnancy as violence, as a violation of bodily agency. Pregnancy as carrying a parasite inside you.

"Do you understand that if there is a parasite inside me I'll kill myself?"

One of my favourite thematic in the film saga Alien is that. Motherhood and the horror of it all. The summary of this book has that one sentence “Alien meets Midsommar“, and even if I usually dislike that type of comparison - I *know* that it’s a marketing thing and that they basically need to do it nowadays - this one sounds about right. Because at times, this really felt like that horror saga I adore, making me love this book even more. Because the way the author treated his themes here was absolutely perfect. As someone who loves their horror book, political and visceral, I was enchanted. I was horrified the whole time, but it was just that good.

I think that one of my favourite things in this author’s book is the way he writes both transness and autism, intertwined with one another. And here, intertwined with the horror of it all. And the absolute perfection with which he wrote those parts helps make Crane a really interesting protagonist to follow - even if somehow he was not my favourite character here, but we’ll talk about that just after.

Crane has fucked up thoughts. That was one of my first impressions of him. He has thoughts that would probably kill a small Victorian child, but dear lord, how much do I love him. He has been fucked up by life, he is messy, he is so angry, he is so not perfect, I found him perfect here. He has intrusive thoughts and fucked up relationships, but I wouldn’t have imagined this book with any other characters. And around him, there is a cast of characters that are well….not really more morally good. There is Levi, whom I hated very quickly; there is Jess, whose relationship with Crane made me scream at times - understand: very often - there is Tammy, who often felt comforting and who had several scenes making me laugh. And then there is Stagger, who somehow ended up being my favourite character and who was SO interesting.

“Even the worms won’t contradict an Appalachian granny.”

This book felt perfect. This book was probably perfect. In fact, the only point where I could complain would be the end, which I have found to be a bit rushed. But even that felt good, felt right, considering this book. This was one of my most anticipated reads this year, and I am so glad I got to experience it.

If you feel like you want a really disturbing adult horror book that treats its themes so well and in a political way, then I can only recommend this one. On his website, AJW specify that this book contains “every nasty feeling I, as the author, have ever carried with me as an autistic trans man, especially since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022”, and that felt about right. Books are political, and horror is political. Always has been. This book did it perfectly, so if the trigger warnings - included at the end of this review - haven’t made you run away, I can only recommend it to you. In fact, I am very much begging you to read it because I kind of need to scream about it with more people.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Daphne Press for sending me this e-ARC. It will hit the shelves on September 9th!

Trigger Warnings - as available on AJW's website:

- Infanticide (neonaticide) involving cannibalism
- Graphic depictions of pregnancy and childbirth as violence and body horror; on-page early stillbirth with subsequent desecration of corpse; on-page botched DIY abortion
- Narrative focus on suicidality and planning suicide, with no attempt made; similar focus on self-harm, shown on-page (disfigurement via scalding)
- Consistently unclear sexual boundaries and consent, up to and including rape, often involving confusion on behalf of the survivor
- Sexual fantasies/intrusive thoughts involving abuse and bestiality
- Domestic abuse
- Graphic violence
- Emetophobia warning
- Weird parasitic bug shit, needles, general transphobia and ableism, etc.

Representation:

- mute, autistic transgender man main character
- non binary side character
- trans woman side character

Please do check the trigger warnings for this book.
The protagonist, Crane, is an autistic and mute trans man who is under control of ‘The Hive’, a sickening cult of worms and flies. To be able to deliver so much emotion and so many feelings through a character who cannot say anything is nothing short of impressive. Without spoiling too much, Crane falls pregnant and is forced by The Hive to go through with the pregnancy.

The representation of intrusive thoughts, autism and the trans community sold this book for me.

The horror was extremely impressive in all aspects - fiction (The Hive) and reality (transphobes and complicit enablers).

A sincere thank you to Andrew Joseph White and Daphne Press for approving me to provide an honest and unbiased review of this ARC. All opinions are my own, and I was extremely excited to be approved for my first NetGalley review for a book of my favourite genre.

Thank you to Daphne Press and Netgalley for a copy of the e-arc to review!

First of, wow. This is a very gruesome and grotesque horror that was just perfect and disgusting and extremely quick to read.
I have read one other book by Andrew and that one was brilliant but this one takes the number one spot for me. I enjoyed the characters, the story, the horror within and in some ways found certains topics relatable but not to this extent.

I am glad I read this book and I am excited to read more of his work, but I do suggest looking at trigger warnings as they are needed.

Take this rating with a pinch of salt because I have a lot of feelings about this book and they're hard to sum up in just one little star rating!
You Weren't Meant to Be Human follows Crane, a trans and autistic man who has become part of a cult that worships The Hive: a sentient mass of worms and insects and filth. The Hive allows Crane to be who he wants to be but when he becomes pregnant, The Hive demands its birth. This kicks off a series of horrifying events as Crane's desperation to stop it battles with The Hive's demands.
I'll start off by saying that Andrew Joseph White is a brilliant writer and this book was incredibly well crafted. Visceral emotion just bled through the pages: it was raw and vulnerable and the prose was so sharp and well done. I also loved that, despite the obvious thought and care that went into the book, everything still felt so messy in a really real way. This was the same with the characters, which were also a big highlight. Every character felt so human and realistic in their flaws and messiness and this was reflected in their relationships too.
You Weren't Meant to Be Human I think is Andrew Joseph White's most personal book to date. It's deeply upsetting and disturbing in places but there's a true authenticity to all of it that just draws you in. Crane was such a unique but often deeply relatable protagonist and his arc was so satisfying (as was the arc of other side characters like Jess). It's really important story, particularly with what's happening in the US at the moment. I'm really impressed with the strength of the execution and emotion that this book achieved with a relatively small page count. Though, to be honest, I don't think I could have dealt with it being much longer due to the heaviness of the content! I think I would have liked there to be a bit more exploration of The Hive. Its prescence loomed over the whole book, but I think seeing a bit more of it would have improved this even further.
While I do think this book was very well written and achieved what it set out to do very well, I do hesitate to rate it 5 stars purely because it wasn't a great reading experience. The middle section was just so relentlessly (almost repetitively) awful that I struggled to keep picking the book up. That said, I'd definitely reccommend this to any horror fans looking for an unflinching portrayal and commentary on how we treat transgender and pregnant people and the decline of body autonomy and civil rights in today's world.

Andrew Joseph White’s steps into adult fiction come in like a freight train. With a deep and emotional examination of love, identity, and the horrors of being human, this was an unputdownable mind-f**k of a book.

I’m still reeling from that ending. This book is brutal, gruesome, disturbing, and yet… strangely also a little hopeful?

Yes, there’s an alien invasion at play, but that’s hardly the heart of this story (and to be honest, I wouldn’t have minded a bit more lore on the hives). What really sits at the core are identity trauma, domestic abuse, the suffocating weight of community expectations, and (most harrowingly) unwanted and forced pregnancy. If you have a womb, this story will hit like a brick to the face. Crane’s journey is one you feel in every raw, uncomfortable, gory detail, and it’s no accident the author shouts the content warnings loud and clear — because you damn well need to make the conscious decision of wanting to go through that before starting this book. I’m glad I did though.

You Weren’t Meant To Be Human

All my thanks to Daphne Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. This book? It hurt.

Reading this as a trans guy was hard. I’m seriously not going to lie about that. The kind of tough that no other book, other than Andrew Joseph White’s other works, has put me through. This one though? This was the worst, and simultaneously one of the best, things I’ve ever read.

Crane is easily one of the most human, messed up, complicated characters I’ve ever read and experienced. There was pieces of myself in him, sick reflections mirrored on the page that I’ve never been able to put into words, written right there as Crane’s thoughts. The world we live in is absolutely fucking terrifying. It’s supposed to get safer, not scarier. But every day I wake up and something is moving backwards again for trans folks.

I’m four weeks away from my top surgery. The strongest I’ve ever felt in my transition. But reading about Crane and that sick, horrible, stomach turning nightmare of pregnancy is right there on the page. Taking away abortion rights, stripping the LGBTQ+ of their rights and communities. It’s all here in the fucked up amalgamation that is the Hive.

Self mutilation is the biggest vein running through the life of this story. Find me one trans person that hasn’t thought about peeling away their skin, doing something to irreversibly change their appearance, and I’ll congratulate you. God this book was raw and painful and sick, but it got it. Andrew Joseph White always does.

Now, it wasn’t easy reading Levi’s character as carries the same name as me. But not a single person in these novels ever comes without their own big heaping dollop of trauma and fucked-upped-ness. Stagger was surprisingly my favourite character. Kind of rude to make me love a mushed up man made of human and worm parts but you sure did manage it.

The world was so so interesting, I would have loved to hear more about the other hives. It kept me so hooked, I wanted the story to keep going. Joseph White always succeeds in writing rich stories full of character and vitriol and this was no difference.

I want to warn people about this book. But maybe the best thing is to not warn them. Let them experience the horror and fear. It’s what most queer folk experience anyway. Why should I protect someone from being uncomfortable about a story when I don’t even feel comfortable in my own skin.

Read it. Experience it. Let it build your fear and your empathy simultaneously. And then come back to me and tell me it’s my choice to want to exist like this. The Hive awaits. Join it for a little while.

thank you to netgalley and daphne press for giving me access to the e-arc! all opinions are my own.

i've been going on a journey of reading all of andrew joseph white's books this year (only his ya debut left!), and i was beyond excited to be approved for this arc. terrified, too, as i'd heard about how gross and messed up yet brilliant ywmtbh is. i devoured this book within a few days and had to frequently stop myself from reading it all in one go. i actually finished it quite a while ago but had to digest what i'd read before putting my thoughts and feelings into words.

crane, a mute autistic trans man, is indebted to the hive (as in, an actual hive of worms and flies), who have allowed him to detransition and live his life as his most authentic self in exchange for his labour. when he gets pregnant, though, the hive - and his sort-of boyfriend - don't allow him to end the pregnancy, instead forcing him to carry to term.

this novel is a brutal, raw and honest depiction of a world that isn't kind at all, particularly to those marginalised in a patriarchal society. while reading, i could feel, empathise with and relate to the rage in this book. honestly, this is the only appropriate response to the overturning of roe v. wade and everything that's been happening since then.

ajw has a way of writing (main) characters that just makes you care about them SO much, that makes you worried and sitting at the edge of your seat until the very end of the story. i loved crane, but sometimes i wanted to (gently) shake him and tell him that he deserves so much more than he settles for. the ending absolutely destroyed me (no spoilers here, you'll have to read it yourself) and, even a week later, i'm still reeling. i can confidently say that ywmtbh changed my brain chemistry.

if you're planning on picking this up, PLEASE take the trigger warnings seriously - this novel is graphic and brutal and doesn't shy away from the horrors of life. it's fantastic, i highly recommend it, but please take care.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human showed me a different side of horror, and I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for it. Andrew Joseph White writes with a perspective that is visceral, raw, painful, and lived. As graphic as it gets, none of it feels like shock value. This is not horror for its own sake; it is messy, brutal, and closer to reality than we want to admit. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The story follows Crane, an autistic trans man who joins the hive in search of escape and the chance to live in a body that feels like his own. Yet the hive that should protect him demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost. That concept alone is revolting, and enough for anyone whose body can be forced into pregnancy to feel the triggers cut deep. The book lays them out clearly, and I would not recommend skipping them. Add to that the perspective of a transgender narrator, which brings another layer of weight and complexity. The writing is sharp, crude, and raw. You are inside Crane’s head through a deep third-person point of view that AJW handles beautifully.

The themes here are brutal. Body autonomy twisted into body horror. Abuse. Survival. It is revolting, and that is the point. It is disturbing, it makes you sit with it, makes you feel the real horror of what is happening to Crane. None of this was easy to read. It even took me a while to get into the book because it begins very slowly, with scenes that turned my stomach at a stage when I was still unsure of the plot. The pacing drags in a way that feels uncomfortable, holding back world-building and any plausible explanations. Later on, though, what began as a frustration started to make sense. Because that is the point.

Overall, You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is one of the most disturbing books I’ve read in a long time. Despite my early struggles with the pacing, it is revolting and unforgettable. Horror here becomes a deeply personal experience, and the result is a story that refuses to let you look away.

This might not be a book for everyone. If you are looking for fast-paced horror or cheap thrills, this is not it. But if you are ready for something raw and graphic, open to new perspectives, and willing to sit with pain, abuse, and the horror of losing control over your own body, then this one will leave its mark.

grisly, horrific, dark.

i devoured the book. no pun intended. andrew joseph white is a great storyteller and he crafts such fascinating characters & stories that suck you in.

it felt like a very timely book considering american politics regarding autonomy and women’s bodies recently.

wish we were given any explanation about the world, whilst i did enjoy the gritty mysterious element we were given, i was so curious about more.

many thanks to publishers for an ARC in exchange for my review.

For most people, the horror genre conjures images of haunted houses and spectral entities existing outside the bounds of the known. The supernatural scares are thrilling because they are, by nature, not real.

So when I say You Weren't Meant To Be Human is properly horrific, I mean it in the literal, visceral REAL WORLD sense. It's the kind of creeping, existential horror you feel watching true crime or world news. For all its fantastical elements, this novels true terror lies in the way it peels back the shiny, ostensibly civilised fascade of society to show the squirming, parasitical truth beneath.

You Weren't Meant To Be Human is set in the not too distant future in a world only a few small steps -- a few small degrees-of-liberty dystopian -- than the one we exist in now. It is a world characterised by the erasure of democracy and the rise of far-right Christian propaganda. A progressive, unkind and brutal slide backwards for humanity.

It is almost understandable then that at the lowest point of his life, Crane -- the trans-masc protagonist of the novel -- is drawn to a mysterious yet empathetic offer of shelter. He grasps at the only chance for authenticity and compassion he has ever known, even if that means becoming a servant to a ravenous, murderous horde of alien insects.

Though unsubtle, it is a deeply fitting metaphor for the brainwashing, the love-bombing, common to victims of cults (a subject that White has addressed with equal horror in his previous novel "Compound Fracture"). So successfully is it depicted here that, as a reader, I found myself grateful for the Hive and it's intercession on behalf of Crane. Truly a narrative coup to turn such visceral disgust toward a tentative hope.

Alas, there is no real reprieve from nihilism in the end. You Weren't Meant To Be Human is the kind of relentless can't-catch-a-break horror that is aptly supported by the central theme of forced pregnancy. We experience each loss, each betrayal, right alongside Crane. It can be exhausting, nauseating and the ultimate outcome unavoidable.

Brutal and bloody and incapable of pulling any punches, this novel is an extremely timely picture of just what a horror it is to be stripped of autonomy and freedom. And THAT is something we all should find deeply terrifying.

I've got mixed feelings on this one - for a large chunk of the story I found most of the characters somewhere between unrelatable and downright despicable, and the plot was quite flat until the final act, which did turn my general opinion on the book around in a positive way, allowing a couple of the side characters to really shine and gripping me right to the last page.
I felt there was a missed opportunity with the horror/otherworldly aspects of the book, in terms of being underdeveloped/not explored very deeply, but thematically this did hit very hard (the content warnings were no joke, this is GRIM).

Jesus f*cking Christ...

'You're Not Meant To Be Human' is my first time reading AJW, and what a way to start: a viscerally nauseating, brutal, and disgustingly grotesque body horror about a trans-man, Crane, who exists as a member of (what's essentially) a cult to a mass of sentient flies and worms known as a Hive. Crane discovers that he is pregnant, and he is forced to carry the foetus until birth, with extreme discussions of mental illness, dysphoria, self-mutilation, and sexual violence. I cannot understate how graphic and repulsive this book is, while still praising it for being so captivating.

The story drops us right into the middle of the Hive with little context, which remains a deep unknown throughout. While unsettling, I actually found this to be a more lacking aspect of the novel as it left me with a lot of unanswered questions — How does it work? What prompts people to try to flee so suddenly? Why does this Hive demand a pregnancy? Why now? To what end? — all of which are ultimately inconsequential: this is a book about people, and the destruction they wreak upon themselves, not some alien parasite.
That being said, I'm still nursing the excellent whiplash of the Hive's contrast between honeyed kindnesses to downright cruel verbal abuse in the same paragraph.

Having Crane be voluntarily mute is a unique choice that I loved as you really feel his desperation and frustration. AJW's character exploration is overwhelmingly real. Even throughout the most vile moments, I could follow Crane's feelings and empathise with his destructive tendancies (albeit to a drastically diminished degree). Supporting characters are established well and hold surprising moments of tenderness amidst the brutality.

The foreshadowing here is gut-wrenching with hindsight, though I did find the pacing to waver towards the end. I would usually get frustrated with this kind of "neatly wrapped-up" ending, though in this case I'll admit it does feel like the only logical conclusion.
As many have said the last 10% was astoundingly painful, and that's fine, however it's the final chapter that cuts through it all and leaves me simply confused as to Crane's intentions. Although... I guess I can't blame him for not having a plan after everything he went through.

I do wonder why other characters' past pregnancies — especially Aspen's as a fellow gender-diverse person — were never explored beyond a mere mention, as I think it could have built something more (positive or negative) between characters.

"Did I enjoy reading this book?" ... "Who would I recommend it to?" Absolutely no idea, but it is a gutteral, subversive exploration of identity, transformation, self-hatred, and reproductive rights that stays with you long after you read it. Wildly impressive.


Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Caitlin at Daphne Press for providing me with an ARC.

Rating: 4.5/5

First off, huge thanks to Daphne press for sending me the e-arc of this, the whole reason I started writing reviews in the first place is because I wanted to read an arc of this specific book Im not even joking. I owe every single one of you my life, this was the greatest thing thats ever happened to me fr

Now that thats out of the way, what a banger book!! Andrew Joseph White never misses, as I was sure he wouldn’t! Read most of it in a single sitting, could not put it down at all.

First thing I wanna say is, heed the content warnings!!!! Whatever is said is there for a reason, I don’t usually pay much attention to CW bc Im not easily phased but this book, Jesus,,,, Amazing book, though I feel like its one of those reads where I’ll hesitate before recommending it to a friend because how do I explain I read this and Loved it haha

I was initially really drawn to the Hive (Im a Magnus Archives fan who would’ve thought Id look at a bunch of worms and go omg cool) and looked forward to some fucked up monster kind of horror but this book relied more on the general horror that is pregnancy and humans being shitty, and that was just as awful I had a great time. As a trans person who’s also deathly afraid of pregnancy bc it sounds scary as hell I felt everything (ok maybe not Everything I am a bit more mentally stable I think) Crane felt on such a personal level, it felt very real and raw.

The ending was just as horrific as I expected it to be, if not more, overall 10/10 book no notes, I am so excited for it to officially come out so I can buy it and own it forever!