You Weren't Meant to be Human is by no means an easy book to read. This is a story filled with horrors, both real and imagined. It is definitely filled with horrific moments, and trigger warnings abound. But if you can make it through it, this book is a terrific horror novel with some amazing commentary on the state of the world and how we treat others, and how we make them feel.

I am an Illumicrate Evernight subscriber - this is their horror box that ships out once a quarter. I found out I was going to be getting this and was somewhat hesitant at first. You see, I'm generally not a put gore/grotesque/body horror fan. Now don't get me wrong, I am a seasoned horror reader and watcher - I have seen and read some nasty stuff, and when I was younger and first getting into the genre gore had its appeal. But after a life in an ER for over a decade, I saw plenty of real life gore, and over time my tastes in horror have really leaned away from gore for shock value, or gore for gore's sake. So whenever I see gory body horror, I tend to be less interested. I was really surprised at how great this was, along with how shocking!

From the jump, we get put into this dystopian near future America where human rights have been taken back tremendously, abortion is illegal, and this odd conglomerate of creatures known as The Hive is calling to people who are looking for a way out. Our main character is an autistic trans man who now works for The Hive, and his world is rocked by finding out he is pregnant, and the Hive wants him to have the baby for them.

One of my favorite things in horror is when authors take real life horror, and add that extra element to it, and Andrew Joseph White has done that in spades. This book is filled with body horror, both real world and imagined. Our main character faces some of the real fear of any pregnancy, on top of that pregnancy being something completely at odds with their identity. The fictional horror of the Hive, a sentient mass of creatures who are intent on devouring and using their human hosts, only add to the real life scares. The Hive is mysterious and create an eerie backdrop for this dystopian horror.

From a thematic standpoint, this addresses some really important topics. The idea of of bodily autonomy is discussed at length, especially in the setting of both the laws of this dystopian America as well as The Hive forcing our main character to have a baby. We also take a long, uncomfortable look at what it means to be human, how we make people who are different than us feel, and how our society can put marginalized groups into horrible positions. You can see the trauma that the world has inflicted on a number of our characters, and our main character has some heartbreaking expositions about how they felt as a trans male growing up as a cis female. And, as the title suggests, it grapples with the idea of our humanity, and the humanity that we take from people that we see as other, or different.

The ending is certainly going to be controversial, and I do think that you need to be ok with things being a little bit open ended. My Illumicrate edition was really cool as it had a bonus chapter that tied things up a bit more, but honestly I really enjoyed the standard ending from the regular editions of the book.

Now, full warning - I think this is going to be an extremely difficult book for a lot of people to read. At the simplest level, it may be difficult for people stomach some of the body horror and gore. As I said, I am a pretty seasoned horror fan, and I had to physically put this book down and get some space on three separate occasions while reading! Additionally, there are some heavy trigger warnings in here. I would strongly recommend anyone interested in reading this to check them out on a platform like StoryGraph, or check out the author's content warnings here. There are some genuinely potentially triggering things in here. This is not going to be for everyone by any means. And some other feedback from readers I have seen is that it can be a bit on the nose/feel a little too close to home in some spots when it comes to the modern day dystopia. However, if you are into being disturbed, exploring the themes above, and love body horror, you will definitely enjoy this book.