Status Updates From You Weren't Meant to Be Human

Note: recommend to others with caution as there are several TWs but SA is mentioned and severe suicidal ideation is a large part of this story

-audiobook volumes varied: Whispered emotes of characters vs the loud Hive voice required me to adjust volumes
-flashback bloat made the side characters seem less developed (would’ve liked more from Jess or Aspen/Birdie or just less flashbacks)
-Reason behind killing of baby felt off to me (the fact I can analyze this means the story was engaging, tho)

4.5* round to 5 b/c writing style and unique reading experience

I don’t mind lack of characterization of Levi (as he represents the Hive who represents.. well…) but I would have liked more from Jess or Birdie/Aspen (I wouldn’t need this but with the consistent flashbacks to his dead-name's life, it became off-balance)

+body horror to the max with a killer opening line
+aliensss
+transgender experience
+listed TWs
+Hive voice in audiobook was unsettling
+writing style

Honestly, when the baby’s fate was sealed I didn’t expect it to be out of mercy, I really thought it would’ve been more resentment, an eff you for forcing Crane into the confines of a role cut out for a gender; because if it’s a mercy kill then honestly, even in a “not-right” mind, Crane killed the Hive anyway so why do it all out of order, kill everyone, take baby to parents then dip to Cali to find Jess

“It wasn’t that Crane wanted her dead. It was just that she was never going to survive what it took for him to crawl out of her.” (Crane, speaking about his dead-name)

It’s gory in a way that takes body horror to the next level, taking the parts of us, the insides, and puts them outside for us to stare at: autonomy, gender, monstrosities of being human

Crane eats her jugular, reminiscent on the nature docs he saw where mothers eat their young

Levi dives for him but Stagger gets Levi first, he shoots his shotgun wide as Stagger hit him again and Tammy is shot dead, then Stagger, Levi’s head is crushed in

Crane leaves the baby tucked into Stagger

Shotgun jams so Crane takes a hammer and kills Levi then finishes off the Hive

Wraps up baby and FaceTimes his parents

Jess tells them to give them their phone # and then gtfo cuz Levi is one bad guy, that Crane will contact when he’s ok

Jess drives to Cali

Levi’s scar wriggles... the Hive

“The father’s compatibility with our flesh; the mother’s bitterness and hunger and submission.
She will be perfect. She will be beautiful. She will carry us into the sun.”

Crane fears that Hive will do to his daughter what they did to him

He takes keys to Levi’s truck, tosses them to Jess along with his go-bag that was confiscated from him, makes Stagger go inside to prevent Levi from coming out

Crane’s parents drive in to gas station, don’t recognize him at first

They were good parents but believed Crane’s lies that he was ok

They want him to be ok despite being disfigured, silent, pregnant and male. They want him to come home

Stagger brushes his teeth, bathes him, gets in tub w him and does a C section on himself so Crane can dig inside, grab a worm

Levi must’ve known Stagger before the Hive made him into this

They squish the worm dead together then kiss

He goes into labor and he’s not afraid of dying but of dying a woman or not being allowed to die at all

He goes out for a smoke break (HA) w Jess

Levi has a keloid scar

Crane plans to leave baby w Tammy and Levi

Levi won’t let Jess in until she threatens to tell the Hive what he did to Hannah (UGH)

Crane admits mental illness stopped his dreams, thinks how nothing happened to him but Jess was found in a boarded up room, her mental state has more “reason"

Though her at-home attempt failed Jess took pills and Crane couldn’t, the Hive got to him first

Levi and him have sex (it’s so much more than that but in efforts of being crass, I’m calling it sex) and then he breaks 2 of Crane’s fingers

Crane sticks his face in boiling water

Levi builds crib, Crane thinks how this baby means that Levi is always in him somehow

He’s disgusted w the kicks in Crane’s belly, finally realizing the consequences of his own actions, if anything goes wrong Hive will blame Levi

Levi found out Birdie and Aspen weren’t Hive people, their deaths would cause too much work to clean up (loved in their community, have a kid) so Crane has to cut them out or Levi will kill them

He has to make them hate him, you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, punches Aspen. Oh, this is so sad, Crane is so pitiful, so submissive and these 2 were friends, fellow queers, ready to up and leave for him

Jess, drunkenly calls out Crane that if he wanted to abort he would’ve done it, but she doesn’t know about the Hive, Levi, Stagger

Jess is pregnant w Levi’s baby! She wanted it gone, so now she’s bleeding out and Crane is struggling to get her to the hospital, risking breaking the rules, can’t tell Tammy she’s too loyal

Levi is at the foot of the stairs, he used up his one chance to break a rule...leaving the house

Stagger and Crane have a beautiful? Idk what to call it honestly, maybe just a moment of recognition, where S signs “Y” to motion between them both, and the sign for “sorry”, Crane feels S’s stomach, the worms wriggling under a parallel to the baby in him

Hive gets Levi to enforce stricter rules, if Crane breaks one he gets a broken bone

Tammy says she's been tasked for 20yrs to make sure no babies were born (can kill the moms, it's too big a risk), then she was told to just stay w Crane and now 2 pregnancies have popped up

Crane holds the plastic bag THE plastic bag, he goes to the woods, inside is no larvae, it’s human

He tries to attack the Hive but Stagger stops him, the Hive reprimands him, Crane gets to be outside, doesn’t appreciate it

Rules are set as he heads in to the 2nd trimester: no driving, always accompanied by Levi or Stagger, all blades, bullets and sharp objects are hidden or replaced, no more hunts, weekly check-ins w Tammy

Tammy calls saying a pregnant girl from another hive is here, he runs to go over, Hannah, 18 yo who’s only 20 wks, Crane is so jealous the birth will most likely be stillborn