Hell Is a World Without You

March 1, 2024
In Kirk's debut novel, an American teen traverses his high school years while struggling to hold on to his Christian faith. It's 2000, and 14-year-old Isaac Siena Jr. is now a freshman in high school. As a conservative evangelical Christian, he faces numerous temptations in the secular school he attends. He (mostly) listens to Christian music, resists sexually laced thoughts about women, and tries to stick to a profanity-free vocabulary. All the while, Isaac is still tormented by the loss of his father years ago in a fatal car accident and the almost certainty that his non-Christian dad is in Hell. As high school passes by, the boy maintains cherished relationships with fellow Christians, including girls he may grow attracted to. He questions aspects of his religion, such as women not being considered as equals and homosexuality being outright condemned. He finds himself swayed by secular media and impious desires; as adulthood inches closer, Isaac must decide if he wants to leave his evangelical world behind. The bulk of Kirk's narrative, which closely follows all four years of Isaac's high school career, consists of theological debates. Sometimes they are internal, with an inner voice often chastising Isaac (its preferred refrain is the hilariously blunt "REGRET!"). In other instances, Isaac engages in Christian-themed discussions face to face or via the once-popular AOL Instant Messenger service. Although the author layers this story with humor, he meticulously examines Christianity as well; Isaac's belief system, for example, seemingly holds women responsible for any and all sexual conduct (even when a man initiates it). This all comes through the teen's endearing narration; he persistently apologizes for slip-ups (such as swearing), drops endless references to early 21st-century pop culture, and, along with many of his Christian pals, spells out forbidden words or simply replaces them with innocuous terms like gosh darn. A consideration of evangelical Christianity that blends sublimely with a droll coming-of-age tale.

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January 29, 2024
With brutal honesty and extensive empathy, sports journalist Kirk (also the co-host of the thoughtful, inviting Vacation Bible School podcast) brings to frank and funny life the reality of an evangelical upbringing. His coming-of-age story Hell is a World Without You masterfully blends humor, truth, and a splash of 2000s nostalgia (including Gaither Vocal Band CDs, an abundance of Calebs, and guilt over “wallowing in atheist MTV and satanic Sonic games”). Taught to believe his desires are “diseased,” grieving teenage narrator Isaac is met with the decision of a lifetime (or eternity) —choosing between fire and brimstone or his forbidden love.
The story opens with adolescent Isaac at a Christian summer camp, a summer marked with accountability partners, proclamations of abstinence, and fun with Supersoakers, all as he’s worrying he’s a “degenerate committing sins foul enough to get me flicked like a loathsome spider into endless agony.” Kirk captures this milieu with wit and some warmth, despite his frank accounting of the toll on Isaac’s psyche. When Isaac enters a public high school, he suddenly is playing a dangerous game of balancing his evangelical Christianity with his desire to fit in. As Isaac grieves the loss of his father, he begins to question what he has always known: “What if we’re allowed to say what if?” he asks a friend.
“My prefabricated mind had never been mine,” Isaac notes, as the convictions he was raised to embrace (belief in Hell, the Rapture, that “being gay is bad” and that “science is fake”) fall away. Kirk concludes with a tear-inducing conversation between Isaac and his mother, in which she tells him that they’re never going to agree on everything but that “I’d choose Hell over a world where I’m not your mama.” Kirk’s depiction of evangelical life is convincing, sometimes pointed, but also humane and never caricatured. The result is a resonant novel, briskly told, with laugh-out-loud comedy and poignant insight.
Takeaway: Frank, funny account of an 2000s evangelical upbringing.
Comparable Titles: Kelsey McKinney’s God Spare the Girls, Julia Scheeres’s Jesus Land.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A