You Weren't Meant To Be Human

De: Andrew Joseph White

Narrado por: Max Meyers

A Washington Post and Publishers Weekly Best SF/Fantasy/Horror Novel of 2025

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.

Good story, frustrating audio

Inconsistent audio levels and needlessly overperformed. Had me constantly turning up the audio to hear the narrator’s subvocal delivery, only to have my eardrums obliterated any time they switched to The Hive’s dialogue.

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.

Brutal in the best way

Hard hitting, dark, honest, and sucked me in fully like all the other AJW books have done!

Same dish

I love the gore and pain Andrew creates, but I can only handle so much “I’m autistic and gay and no one understands me” before it feels old and over done

Worms are squishy and gross

This book is so gross and twisted, with characters who are severely messed up but still somehow relatable. I love AJW's writing and this just continued the trend. Keep in mind this is a horror novel for adults with very dark and grotesque content.