You Weren't Meant to Be Human

De: Andrew Joseph White

Narrado por: Max Meyers

Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.

Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse.

Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is a deeply personal horror; a visceral statement about the lives of marginalized people in a hostile world, echoing the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.

©2025 Andrew Joseph White (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio

rip my heart out

This was absolutely incredible. This got to me in so many ways. Visceral. Beautiful. Haunting. MAX, oh my god your performance. So, so good.

Shivers

While I might have scared myself out of being so grossed out by imaging worse outcomes, I still loved the book. White has a way of making cold ice down your spine. I was scared for everyone at least once in the book.

Myers suprised me a few times with the guttural edge of his performance of Crane’s anger and disassociation. The shift in his voice when going back in time with Crane is crazy.

Good work to the both of you.

Ugly crying

Reviewing RIGHT after finishing it and the thing that sticks with me is two things in the marketing that did a great disservice:
Offering it as “Alien meets Midsommar” was not at all accurate. If anything I’d call it closer to a mashup of Incision/Juno/Slither.
Secondly that by a lot of the blurbs I thought it would be more of a sprawling road trip movie like Plan B (2021). It was not.
Most importantly however, it was utterly devastating. I had snot and heavy breathing by the end.
It’s a fever dream of a not so distant future, both disgusting and sexy, sometimes jarring between the two fast enough to give whiplash and leave you to deal with the aftermath on your own.
And for a book about so desperately wanting an abortion it ended up such a touching, deeply heartbreaking devotional to what parental love truly can be in its most extreme form. And I mean stomach turning, audible sobbing in the living room at 2 AM extreme.
It’s so grotesquely beautiful and I feel like I’ll definitely do a reread more than once.

What Horror Does Best

Good horror should hold up a mirror to the human condition. It should take us to dark places, places that are uncomfortable, and say "look here". That's what "You Weren't Meant to be Human" does best. It makes you look into the darkest recesses of the world and find those thoughts and feelings that are lurking inside us; not belonging, fear, insecurity, inadequacy or disfunction.... And it wraps it all up in a nice little box made of the most vulnerable thing a person can do- create new life. This is a process so far beyond our control, even in the modern day, that it's a story every mother can present with some level of understanding to the fear and humiliation that comes with it, at least to some degree.

Not foe the faint of heart of the squeamish, but a story that will make you truly reflect on the real terrors that haunt anyone who has gone down the hard path of parenthood.

Obnoxious narrator

the hive is always shouting but unintelligible. the main character whispers and is also often unintelligible. so I have to crank and crank and crank the volume to hear Crane, and then suddenly the hive is screaming and blowing out my eardrums. plus I constantly have to back up and listen to the same sentence four or five times to understand what the hive is even fucking saying.

please read the content warnings before diving in

I have never disliked any of the authors works. each book has been great. but I wasn't ready for this listen. I dove in and just took it as it came and it is very heavy. all of his works have been emotionally charged and wonderfully written. I cannot wait for the next tale.

This book felt like a pile of worms in my stomach…and I loved it

Just read it. The description, the realness, the gut wrenchingness. Literally the only I critique I have for this book as I couldn’t quite understand what the worms were saying.

gut wrenching

in every way the word applies. emotional, disgusting, and oddly beautiful.

first off, the voice over is absolutely perfect. the reader does an amazing job making you feel mountains or emotions behind every word.

AJW books always leave me feeling emotionally drained by the end (I say this as a compliment) but WOW did this one mess me up. the gore never felt exploitive or unnecessary for the story so that's not really what got me. it was the tone that crushed me. this story is BLEAK. incredibly bleak. characters range from well meaning to abusive monsters with most falling closer to the ladder. every scene is filled with this crippling sense of hopelessness. given that's how Crain feels, it works perfectly.

Crain himself is such a deeply interesting character. out of all of AJW's protagonists, I think he's the most complex in his existence. for me, his self destructive tendencies and crushing anxiety that cripple any ability to make good choices (or any choices), is deeply relatable. I hated every choice Crain made in the story but I UNDERSTOOD them. the aspect of him I find most interesting is the fact he doesn't have a traumatic past that made him the way he was. there's no one to 'blame' for Crain being the way he is. not even himself. if he had a better support system and wasn't taken advantage of, I think none of this would have happened. it's so deeply tragic and it is comforting and terrifying to see your own struggles explained in the words you never had.

this book is extremely good. it's terrifying and the body horror isn't even the worst of it. I don't feel good after reading this book but I feel like that was absolutely intentional. I wanted a crippling horror story, and I was blown away.