The Rapture Book

I got a copy of this through Amazon Vine, and the only reason why I finished this book is so that I could write a review about the entire thing. I did skim pages in the second half of the book, though, because I don't think I would have made it through otherwise. The subject of natural disaster and climate change is of course very real (just turn on the television these days to see coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan), and could have made for a great eco thriller. However, Ms. Jensen somehow managed to take this subject and write a book that is incredibly boring, and that just left me absolutely cold.

So, what is wrong with this book? Well, here goes:

1.) The style of writing is very cold and distant --- it reads like a very, very dry textbook most of the time. There are passages that aren't quite that bad, but they are few and far between.

2.) Considering that this book has been advertised as a "an apocalyptical thriller that will give you nightmares" it is surprisingly dull. Nothing much happens in the first half, and then a lot of what happens in the second half is just uninteresting. It felt to me that the author really didn't know what kind of book she wanted to write --- a thriller? a religious drama? a study of the human psyche? --- but she failed on all counts. "The Rapture" mostly reads like the screenplay for a really bad disaster movie. Well, maybe not even that because in a disaster movie much more would happen ...!

3.) Gabrielle. She's the lead character --- an art therapist who sits in a wheelchair because of an accident she had not too long before --- and the story is narrated by her. A large part of the book is centered on her insecurities and self-pity, and on her psychological debates with herself. She is constantly stating that she doesn't feel like a real woman anymore because she is in a wheelchair. So don't read this book unless you are prepared to spend *a lot* of time reading about the inner workings of a bitter, jealous, cynical and insecure woman. Gabrielle is mostly just concerned about herself, so I find it hard to believe anyone would let her work as a therapist --- she needs one herself!

4.) The romance. Such as it is. Gabrielle meets a man called Frazer Melville. There is zero chemistry between them, and I personally have no idea why he is attracted to her. I also found it somewhat irritating that she would constantly call him by his full name --- Frazer Melville did this, Frazer Melville said that (even after they slept together) --- or by his profession, "The Physicist" (as in "I wanted to call the physicist to tell him ..."). Very strange. Their romance just did not ring true for me. It felt forced and, basically, cringe-worthy most of the time. Also, once she meets Frazer, Gabrielle becomes completely obsessed with sex. So be prepared to read a lot about that obsession.

To sum it up, "The Rapture" is a badly-written, fairly predictable, and completely pointless book. The story develops *very* slowly, the style of writing requires a lot of patience on the reader's side, and the constant religious and/or psychological babble grated on my nerves. I didn't care about the characters at all, and I certainly didn't care about whether or not any of them survived in the end. In the hands of a better writer this might have been a much better book, but as it is it was a waste of time.