MiniReview: "Welcome to St. Hell" by Lewis Hancox

What is it?

A YA graphic novel by English writer/illustrator Lewis Hancox, first published in 2022.

What’s it about? It sounds like a horror story.

Well, bits of it are a tad scary! But only because the way Lewis Hancox presents his own story (this is an autobiographical work) creates a rather amusingly horrific portrait of growing up as a trans kid in a small industrial city in the North of England in the 2000s.  

Wow. Can’t have been easy . . .

No. Quite apart from the fact of being trans in a place where gender identities seem to be pretty obvious and exaggerated, Hancox portrays St. Hell as a place anyone would want to get away from. On top of that, his tales of his school days, the insults, the incomprehension, his own confusion over his lack of comfort in his body—it’s a rich kaleidoscope of teen angst through a trans lens. But there’s an undercurrent of kindness and generosity in Hancox’s presentation of his mother (with her ever-present butties) and father (a “manly man” who can’t get his head around what his trans child, Lois, is going through), and strong affection for his understanding grandparents.

How about the illustrations?

It took me a while to appreciate them. They’re quite simple, in black and white, but they do the job in a minimalistic kind of way.

So is it worth reading?

It’s enjoyable and somewhat instructive to read, and could definitely help young trans or questioning readers. As an adult reader, I didn’t really connect with the spirit of the book, which didn’t give me a sense of what gender and body dysphoria might feel like. Hancox uses a lot of humour to undercut the pain in the story he’s telling, but I found this created a barrier to actually understanding what he was going through. But I’m not at all the target audience, and young trans people probably don’t need to be told how painful their journey can be. The book could certainly serve as a useful resource in high school libraries, but cis readers (particularly adult cis readers) looking to understand trans issues might find this book to be unsatisfactorily shallow and not really for them.