Hell is a World Without You by Jason Kirk

LIT LIT

NOTE: I was an early reader for this book and am biased as hell about it.

Andy’s Two Sentence Summary™: A teenage boy with an Evangelical upbringing navigates high school in the early 2000s with all the fears and doubts young people face as well as more specific fears such as being terrified of Hell. As his universe expands and his experiences in the wider world conflict with what he’s learned from church, how will his life change and what will be the cost, body and soul?

You Might Like It If: You grew up Evangelical, you did not grow up Evangelical but are fascinated by the world, you enjoy coming-of-age stories, you think pretty squiggles make good sounds, etc. In other words it’s for everyone and it would be easy to assume otherwise if you are like me and would normally run for the hills once you realize a piece of art is about religion. I’m agnostic/atheist depending on how arrogant I’m feeling in any given moment and this is very much the kind of thing I would not be interested in because of my own personal biases. However I “knew” Kirk from The Internet and I knew the general dimensions of his feelings on religion due to his podcast Vacation Bible School so I was willing to give this a shot and even volunteered through the VBS Patreon to provide early feedback. I’m very happy I did because any suspicion I was getting into something I wouldn’t vibe with disappeared within the first few chapters as I was pulled into Isaac’s world of familiar teenage angst as well as some more unfamiliar issues caused by how he was raised. The book is littered with references to Evangelical culture and youth group tropes but the world building is such that just like any fantasy or sci-fi story that introduces you to unfamiliar climes, you’ll find your feet and want to learn more rather than putting up with it for the sake of the story. There may be different barriers to entry and your background may shape what sticks with you, but rest assured that there’s space for everyone under this big tent.

You Might Dislike It If: You don’t want anyone to say a single bad word about Christianity. If you’re a fundamentalist or an absolute die hard believer then you will probably hate this book, though you would still be well served by reading it. That’s the nature of the game when someone deconstructs how they were raised and might have a negative thing or twenty to say about how that all went. Otherwise get over any ick you might have regarding reading about religion and see how everything comes together.

The Verdict: I’m deeply in the bag for this book because of my involvement but I can’t stress enough how difficult this nuanced and empathetic version of an Exvangelical story is to pull off. It would be easy to say that everything about religion was stupid and those kids are so much better off getting out of there (the ones that do at least). Kirk could have told the story purely as a warning and scoffed at the idea that there is anything useful to gain from the experience except deliverance (of the non-religious variety). But instead Hell is a World Without You is told with compassion for his characters and what they go through. It doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and commits to telling the entire story rather than reacting in anger. These kids are given the love they so richly need and deserve even if it isn’t enough to make happy endings for all of them and that’s the kind of story this has to be or it would turn into yet another screed, an airing of grievances rather than an opportunity to heal. I won’t spoil how this ends or how it gets there (listen to the podcast episode linked above for that as it was a lot of fun to record) but we arrive through realism and reckoning rather than moralizing or mockery. It’s the rare story that treats its subjects with respect by actually telling the entire tale and not just what fits for the easiest rhetorical argument. It’s excellent, I love it, and I hope you will too.

Five Out of Five Stars

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