Alien Invasion Horror Novel ‘You Weren’t Meant to Be Human’ Cover Reveal and Excerpt [Exclusive]

Award-winning YA author Andrew Joseph White (Hell Followed With Us) is making a chilling adult novel debut with You Weren’t Meant to Be Human, described as “Alien meets Midsommar.” 

Bloody Disgusting can exclusively reveal the cover and an excerpt for the upcoming alien invasion novel, set to publish on September 9, 2025.

Here’s the official plot synopsis from Saga Press:  “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.”

Expect a deeply personal tale of identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia. White’s adult novel debut is said to echo the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.

Check out the eye-catching cover below, designed by Drusilla Adeline, swarming with worms. As if that’s not enough, read on for an exclusive excerpt!

The following is a Bloody Disgusting Exclusive excerpt from  YOU WEREN’T MEANT TO BE HUMAN by Andrew J. White. Copyright © 2025. Reprinted by permission of Saga Press at Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Crane is not the best person to greet a terrified and potentially unwell stranger, but better him than Levi. Levi talks about putting down defectors the same way hunters brag about bagging deer. He drinks too much. He’d been dishonorably discharged and only ever mentioned it to bitch about getting caught; what he did, Crane refuses to ask, but when he comes home with blood on his shirt it’s hard not to mull over the possibilities.

In comparison then, Crane is the safer option. The boyish half-androgyny of twenty months’ testosterone therapy—sparse facial hair, yesterday’s eyeliner, almost-but-not-quite flat-chested and a little too feminine around the mouth—places him squarely in the territory of “not a threat, probably.” It’s just the dead-eyed stare and unblinking silence that throws people off and, well. This person will have to deal with it.

The girl is halfway across the parking lot when Crane steps out to meet her.

She’s barefoot and glassy-eyed, one tank top strap slipping off her dirty shoulder. Hasn’t showered in a while, given the state of her hair. The shitty fluorescent lights make it difficult to tell bruises from shadows. She’s limping too. Feet are bleeding.

She walked here, then. From where? The closest town is a few miles up the mountain, but if she was from Washville, he would’ve recognized her.

She sees him and stops.

He waits a moment to see if she starts talking. She doesn’t.

Down the gravel driveway, on the easternmost stretch of West Virginia Corridor H, a truck grumbles past, headed towards the state line. To one side of them, there’s old forest; one minute’s walk to the other, the condemned livestock exchange. Nobody else for a good long while.

Crane’s stomach hurts. He’d been in her place once, three years ago. Creeping too close to his eighteenth birthday, drunk for the first and only time in his life in the high school parking

lot, striking matches and letting them burn out. He’d accepted a spot at a top state school earlier that year—majoring in political communication—and graduated salutatorian that morning. The packing list for his dorm was taped to the fridge, and while his classmates kicked off the rest of their lives at the school-sponsored YMCA grad party, there he was in the dark alone, trying to figure out the logistics of self-immolation.

All his childhood prayers had fallen through. There’d never been a car accident or building fire to do the hard part for him. Time was up. Childhood was over, the real world was knocking on the door, and he was tired. He was too scared to die but he needed it to stop and it was then or never.

But even after years of fantasizing and hoping and begging God, he still didn’t have the guts to do it.

That’s when the swarm found him. Because that’s what happens: it finds you. By the time it makes you an offer, it already knows you won’t say no, and then you end up in front of a strange building hours from home in the middle of the night with blood in the back of your throat and burns on your fingertips.

Same story every time, it seems.

Crane takes one cautious step forward, then another. The girl in the parking lot wavers, looking warily over her shoulder like she’s thinking of running. Nope. She made her choice. Running won’t do her any good.

He clicks his tongue to get her attention and holds up a bottle of water. Here, the gesture says.

“Who—?” she says, sounding sick like a head cold.

The bottle gets a shake. Come on. For you.

She blinks, then picks her way through the sharp gravel to accept it. It takes a few tries to get the bottle open, but when she does, she sucks it down like she hasn’t had a drop for days. When she has to stop to wheeze for air, she pours some onto her face. She splutters, blinking, and aha, there she is. Wild with hunger and confusion. Alive.

She starts to cry.

He’d cried too.

“Thank you,” she sobs, “thank you,” and Crane stands in the dark, looking past her to the road and rubbing the scar on his wrist, because he can’t stand to look someone in the eye.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human hits shelves this September.

Author Andrew Joseph White, Photo credit: Arielle Lewis Studios

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