Adrienne Clark
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You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is the type of book you can’t prepare for. Yes, you can read the back cover copy, which suggests the story is “Alien meets Midsommar.” And yes, you can look to author Andrew Joseph White’s other novels for thematic clues. But none of these things will ready readers for the uniquely terrible and torturously triumphant story that lies in wait.
In You Weren’t Meant to Be Human (Saga Press, out Sept. 9, 2025), Crane is a young trans man who has devoted his life to a mysterious “hive.” A mess of sentient snakes and flies, this hive requires humans to feed them bodies and in return they promise to fulfill their followers’ dreams. Crane’s hive lives in the back closet of a gas station, where he and the other devotees tend to its bloodthirsty needs between selling gallons of unleaded and burnt coffee. It’s not a glamorous life, but it allows the autistic Crane to remain mute and provides ample time for humiliating, masochistic sex with the cruel ex-Marine Levi. But Crane’s life radically shifts when he discovers he is pregnant and the hive wants the child.
Andrew Joseph White’s latest novel is a writhing slow burn filled with doom-laden dread that drips off the page like a worm sliding free from a fist-full of dirt. The story twists its way through layers of terror, pain, and dysphoria as Crane struggles to survive through his forced pregnancy. White’s prose is relentlessly powerful, providing readers with both startling images (“The bullet of fear feels like getting turned insideout”) and profound truths (“You only call it a baby if you want it”).
But You Weren’t Meant to Be Human’s distinctive plot is made all the better by its characters, both as individuals and as a community. Crane’s inner life is rich and complicated and fully on display as the reader sifts through his thoughts on every page, while his observations of those around him paint a picture of a dream-dead world of dead ends. And that unspoken horror creates a fascinating descant to White’s narrative melody. The hive promises these lost souls their every desire in exchange for fealty. But what does the hive actually provide? These are disenfranchised people with no money, no prospects, and no hope for a better life. Crane has thought no further than his transition, content to live in a dilapidated apartment with an abusive partner. While the dysphoria and forced birth are the horror of this story, the hopelessness these characters share is just as monstrous as the eldritch horrors tucked into forgotten corners of rural America.
You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is a masterful work of modern horror. You may be disturbed, but you won’t be disappointed.
Looking for more dark and disturbing queer fiction? Check out Hazelthorn.
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