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The Rapture

by Liz Jensen

3.29 · rating details · 631 ratings · 180 reviews

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An electrifying story of science, faith, love, and self-destruction in a world on the brink.

It is a June unlike any other before, with temperatures soaring to asphyxiating heights. All across the world, freak weather patterns—and the life-shattering catastrophes they entail—have become the norm. The twenty-first century has entered a new phase.

But Gabrielle Fox’s main concern is a personal one: to rebuild her life after a devastating car accident that has left her disconnected from the world, a prisoner of her own guilt and grief. Determined to make a fresh start, and shake off memories of her wrecked past, she leaves London for a temporary posting as an art therapist at Oxsmith Adolescent Secure Psychiatric Hospital, home to one hundred of the most dangerous children in the country. Among them: the teenage killer Bethany Krall.

Despite two years of therapy, Bethany is in no way rehabilitated and remains militantly nonchalant about the bloody, brutal death she inflicted on her mother. Raised in evangelistic hellfire, the teenager is violent, caustic, unruly, and cruelly intuitive. She is also insistent that her electroshock treatments enable her to foresee natural disasters—a claim which Gabrielle interprets as a symptom of doomsday delusion.

But as Gabrielle delves further into Bethany’s psyche, she begins to note alarming parallels between her patient’s paranoid disaster fantasies and actual incidents of geological and meteorological upheaval—coincidences her professionalism tells her to ignore but that her heart cannot. When a brilliant physicist enters the equation, the disruptive tension mounts—and the stakes multiply. Is the self-proclaimed Nostradamus of the psych ward the ultimate manipulator or a harbinger of global disaster on a scale never seen before? Where does science end and faith begin? And what can love mean in “interesting times”?

With gothic intensity, Liz Jensen conjures the increasingly unnerving relationship between the traumatized therapist and her fascinating, deeply calculating patient. As Bethany’s warnings continue to prove accurate beyond fluke and she begins to offer scientifically precise hints of a final, world-altering cataclysm, Gabrielle is confronted with a series of devastating choices in a world in which belief has become as precious - and as murderous—as life itself.

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Hardcover, 304 pages

Published August 11th 2009 by Doubleday (first published January 1st 2009)

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Apr 23, 2011

karen rated it

Shelves: littry-fiction

i don't know what my problem is.

for anyone else, this would probably be a four- or five-star book, and looking through my friends list, it seems to indeed be the case. and i am thrilled, because i love liz jensen and she gets very little play in this country - most of her books are out of print, and the last two didn't even come out in paperback here, so i am holding onto these two sad hardcover copies in the hopes that someone will happen upon them and buy them.

there is ...morei don't know what my problem is.

for anyone else, this would probably be a four- or five-star book, and looking through my friends list, it seems to indeed be the case. and i am thrilled, because i love liz jensen and she gets very little play in this country - most of her books are out of print, and the last two didn't even come out in paperback here, so i am holding onto these two sad hardcover copies in the hopes that someone will happen upon them and buy them.

there is so much good in this book, but it was just missing something. "what was it missing, karen?? where is your book?? YOU THINK YOU CAN DO BETTER??"

no, i most certainly cannot.

i am no writer, but i am a pretty decent reader. and liz jensen is a fine writer, who usually has this indefinable spark to her writing. a low-level thrum in the underwriting. she is dangerous and funny and unexpected. and there is some of that here, but a lot of this reads like a well-constructed thriller, the kind that they make into a "redefining the genre" movie like The Silence of the Lambs or Primal Fear.it is very good, but it didn't make me dance.

but i don't want to diminish this - she manages some pretty tricky things in this novel. when i was reading/reviewing Ship Breaker, i made a point of mentioning that the global-warming stuff was very nearly off-putting, but he didn't push the button hard enough to make me completely queasy. now liz jensen, she throws her whole body on that button and gyrates around, but for some reason, it didn't bother me,. it was like watching my body on an operating table: i was thinking "this should be bothering me, but it isn't."

she has a skill, this one.

and the ending is simply perfect. i will in no way spoil it by saying that there was an easy way out, and a "satisfying" way out, and a "reasonable" way out. and liz jensen took the most complicated choice,the one that was probably the most difficult to write, and wrote it very well. my hat is off to her. she leaves the reader feeling uneasy, which is the best thing she could have done.

i do recommend this book, because it is very good, but in the spectrum of "liz jensen books i have loved," this one is just lower than most.(less)

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May 12, 2011

Ian rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: a-to-z-2011, dystopian, thrillers, a-kindle

This dystopian thriller is set in the very near future in a world where climate change affects everyday life and where major wars are raging in the middle east.

It is also a time when christian religious fundamentalism has taken a hold on a significant proportion of the popular imagination. The zealots are preparing for the end of the world and the Rapture, when god will swoop down and take all true christian believers out of the maelstrom to come. This is a world that has gone comple...more

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Mar 18, 2011

rebellyell666 rated it

· review of another edition

Inhalt:

Als Gabrielle Fox, gelähmt durch einen Autounfall, wieder in ihren Beruf zurückkehrt, bekommt sie gleich den härtesten Fall in der Klinik: Bethany Krall sieht Naturkatastrophen voraus, ist hochgradig gewalttätig und begrüßt die Elektroschocktherapie, mit der sie behandelt wird.

Schreib-/Erzählstil:

Hensen müht sich in ihrer Charaktersierung ziemlich ab, um dem Leser irgendwie Wärme entgegen zu bringen. Die Kunsttherapeutin alias Gabrielle Fox alias Roller, wie ...moreInhalt:

Als Gabrielle Fox, gelähmt durch einen Autounfall, wieder in ihren Beruf zurückkehrt, bekommt sie gleich den härtesten Fall in der Klinik: Bethany Krall sieht Naturkatastrophen voraus, ist hochgradig gewalttätig und begrüßt die Elektroschocktherapie, mit der sie behandelt wird.

Schreib-/Erzählstil:

Hensen müht sich in ihrer Charaktersierung ziemlich ab, um dem Leser irgendwie Wärme entgegen zu bringen. Die Kunsttherapeutin alias Gabrielle Fox alias Roller, wie sie von Bethany netterweise genannt wird, weil Gabrielle im Rollstuhl sitzt, ist eine verletzbare, sich dauerhaft selbst bemitleidende Frau, die gleichzeitig auf jedwede Hilfe aggressiv reagiert. Andere Charaktere, einschließlich Bethany, wirken wie Pappfiguren, die Jensen notdürftig durch die Geschichte laviert.

Meine Meinung:

Dieser Thriller weckte echte Erwartungen. So sehr angepriesen, dass ich wahrlich Unheimliches erwartete. Bethany – so dachte ich – würde mir Alpträume bereiten. Die Therapeutin würde zweifellos an ihr verzweifeln, aber irgendwas aufbauen. Das ist bis zum Ende nicht der Fall. Und auch die Intimität von Therapiestunden ist nicht gegeben.

Stattdessen gehen alle Ärzte bis aufs Äußerste und behandeln Bethany noch über das vertretbare Maß hinaus, nur, weil man sensationsgeil auf eine Katastrophe ist. Da ist ein Anästhesist ohne Approbation, der erst hilft und dann Schiss kriegt und sich mit einem von ihm verursachten Todesfall herausredet. Peinlich die Reaktion von Fox: Auch sie pocht weiterhin auf die Therapien und kommt nicht ein Mal in der Story richtig durch Bethany.

Mitleid mit Bethany: Ja, weil sie so ein unvorstellbar bescheuerter Charakter ist, der in einer abstrusen Hülle steckt. Geliebt werden will sie nicht mehr, wurde sie nie. Ihre Vergangenheit tragisch – sicher, aber ein Klischee der Thrillerstorys. Nette Geschichte, einen Untergang zu prophezeien, doch diese Tatsache macht sie nicht interessant, sondern verrückt. Sie ist ein Charakter, dem Jensen überhaupt keine Chance lässt, etwas menschlich zu werden. Soll uns das jetzt abschrecken oder die Wahrheit zeigen? Wenn ja, ein durchaus schwacher Versuch.

Fox ist gelähmt und sitzt im Rollstuhl. Natürlich ist das schlimm und ich möchte da gar nichts beschönigen oder von Technologien sprechen. Doch ist Fox ein Charakter, der permanent nervt. Kaum hat ihr Liebhaber, den sie trotz Lähmung, aufgetan hat, eine vermeintliche Affäre, rastet sie aus, besäuft sich und suhlt sich in Selbstmitleid – bis zum Erbrechen. Sorry, aber irgendwie ist sie nicht taff genug. Und zwar die ganze Geschichte über nicht. Sie kann Bethany zu keiner Zeit Paroli bieten. Auf jede Tatsache, die Bethany ihr ins Gesicht schleudert, reagiert Fox trotzig und haut ab wie ein kleines Kind, anstatt sich der Realität zu stellen. Gut, dass die Realität ein klischeebeladener Jensen-Thriller ist, dafür kann ich auch nichts.

Fazit:

Ärzte ohne Grenzen – der Zweck heiligt hier wohl die Mittel. Doch nicht bei mir. Der Zweck, dieses Buch zu vermarkten heiligt nicht das Mittel bewusst gute Werbung zu machen.
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Jan 01, 2010

Michelle rated it

"From the opening paragraph, I was instantaneously sucked into Liz Jenson's not-so-future world. The entire book is both fascinating and terrifying. Gabrielle's personal tragedy is horrific, and the reader struggles through her emotional swings along with her. Having literally lost almost everything and having had to start her life anew, Gabrielle is so emotionally and physically fragile that a reader feels compelled to protect her. Bethany, even though wild, crass, rude, and insane, also e...more"From the opening paragraph, I was instantaneously sucked into Liz Jenson's not-so-future world. The entire book is both fascinating and terrifying. Gabrielle's personal tragedy is horrific, and the reader struggles through her emotional swings along with her. Having literally lost almost everything and having had to start her life anew, Gabrielle is so emotionally and physically fragile that a reader feels compelled to protect her. Bethany, even though wild, crass, rude, and insane, also evokes a need to protect as Gabrielle learns more and more about her story and her reasons for murdering her mother.[return][return]But Gabrielle's and Bethany's relationship is the mere backdrop of this story. For Bethany, thanks to her shock therapy, sees visions - disturbing visions of meterological and geological disasters. These visions also have a disturbing habit of occurring exactly when she says that they will occur. This book becomes more than the story of a patient and her counselor but becomes the ultimate showdown between earth and mankind.[return][return]I'll admit that I wasn't prepared for the environmental warnings that this book evokes. Ms. Jensen admits in her acknowledgements that the final global warming story probably will not happen, but that it does remain a possibility. The fact that she wrote the book to take place at least ten years into the future, and she mentions enough situations and global occurances, both environmental and political, that are happening as I type this immediately increases the plausibility of the story.[return][return]Ms. Jensen's writing is so picturesque and realistic that I personally had to catch my breath every now and then. I was compelled to read further to find out how the story ends, how Bethany is connected to the natural disasters and so forth, but the pain, trauma, and emotional fragility of both Bethany and Gabrielle are so strong that it hurts. Add to that a very bleak picture of the not-so-distant future, and it's no wonder I had to take a break every now and then.[return][return]Through it all, I remained completely captivated by Bethany and Gabrielle and haunted by the story in general. This is a great read with which to consider the consequences of our current actions in regards to the environment, global warming, and political upheaval. I will definitely be recommending The Rapture to others![return][return]Thanks to Random House for this ARC!"(less)

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Jul 13, 2011

Alyssia Cooke rated it

To begin with I must say that this is not my usual style of book by any stretch of the imagination. I was wandering through Waterstones and had already found two books for a 3 for 2 deal and this ended up being the third as it intrigued me. This is the story of the apocalypse, or the story of global warming, or the story of corrupt businesses not taking enough care to check for catastrophes that are just waiting to happen. But most of all it is the story of evangelical Christianity gone badly wr...more

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Feb 21, 2011

Paul Pessolano rated it

"The Rapture" is a well put together mystery that puts a little bit of everything into the story.

The first thing the reader has to deal with is a young girl by the name of Bethany. Bethany has brutally murdered her mother, and her father is a well known preacher.

The next thing one has to deal with is Gabreille Fox. Gabreille, due to a car accident, has been left physically and emotionally damaged. She is confined to a wheelchair and becomes the therapist for ...more

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Sep 27, 2010

Teresa rated it

Set in England in the near future, The Rapture is an apocalyptic eco-thriller about a psychologist, Gabrielle, who has been badly injured in an automobile accident, and her 16-year-old patient, Bethany, who has been locked up for murdering her mother. Bethany s imagination is filled with images of natural disasters, and it doesn t take long for Gabrielle to see uncanny parallels between Bethany s fantasies and real-life hurricanes, volcano eruptions, and other disasters happening around the w...more

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Sep 27, 2010

Ian Mapp rated it

· review of another edition

An unexpected delight this one. I read the nine lives of Louis Drax and wasnt blown away. The main reason for this one was because it was on the TV book club.

This grabs you from the start and doesnt let go. Its a serious book, with some playful moments written from a woman's point of view. It reminded me in a lot of ways of Margaret Attwood.

Set in the slight future, with many of the concerns of today (global warming, food shortages in the 3rd world etc.) coming to fru...more

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May 09, 2010

Kelly Hager rated it

This book reminded me a lot of the movie Knowing. Like Knowing, it's about a prophecy that reveals catastrophic events in the past and with worse ones yet to come. In this book, the "prophet" is Bethany, a teenager who killed her mom with a screwdriver. Now in an institution, she tells her therapist about hurricanes and tornados and volcanic eruptions.

The therapist, Gabrielle (recently paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair) reluctantly starts to believe Bethany (scary...more

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Jan 31, 2010

Alihidar rated it

باز آمدم چون عید نو،تاقفل زندان بشکنم
وین چرخ مردم خوار را چنگال و دندان بشکنم
من نشکنم جز جور را یا ظالم بد غور را
گر ذره ای دارد نمک،گیرم اگر آن بشکنم
زآغاز عهدی کرده ام کاین جان فدای شه کنم
بشکسته بادا پشت جان گر عهد و پیمان بشکنم
امروز همچون آصفم،شمشیر و فرمان در کفم
تاگردن گردنکشان در پیش سلطان بشکنم
گر پاسبان گوید که هی،بر وی بریزم جام می
دربان اگر دستم کشد،من دست دربان بشکنم
چرخ ار نگردد گرد دل،از بیخ و اصلش بر کنم
گردون اگر دونی کند،گردون گردان...more

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Jan 10, 2010

Marsena Dufresne rated it

Imagine my delight on picking up a psychological/ecological thriller and finding lyrical prose! I appreciate Liz Jensen's ability to turn a phrase, making her book much more than a simple escape. Her main character is compelling, and the way she sees the world is amusing and familiar. She has taken a job working as a therapist for criminally insane children and sitting in her new office, she's deciding whether to put out pictures of her family or not:

"Why give myself a daily remin...more

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Dec 23, 2009

S K Gillespie rated it

a chapter into Liz Jensen’s latest novel and my mind was reeling and I was wondering what on earth I had gotten myself in for. Unfortunately, the momentum fizzles out about half way and it turns into an amalgam of every disaster/Armageddon movie you’ve ever seen, albeit with more sophisticated language.

The story follows an art therapist, Gabrielle, who is assigned to work with a teenaged girl who has brutally murdered her mother and who believes she can predict the end of the world. ...morea chapter into Liz Jensen’s latest novel and my mind was reeling and I was wondering what on earth I had gotten myself in for. Unfortunately, the momentum fizzles out about half way and it turns into an amalgam of every disaster/Armageddon movie you’ve ever seen, albeit with more sophisticated language.

The story follows an art therapist, Gabrielle, who is assigned to work with a teenaged girl who has brutally murdered her mother and who believes she can predict the end of the world. In the beginning of the book, Gabrielle is cynical, smart and incredibly frustrated and angry by the way her life has turned out after the loss of her boyfriend in a tragic car crash. Throughout the story more and more details are revealed about the crash and Gabrielle’s own part in it, but instead of getting stronger and more adaptive as the story goes on, the character actually becomes incredibly reliant on others, ending up needy and pathetic and not nearly as sassy as she is in the beginning,

What I did like about the story (aside from the hundreds of rarely used words Jensen stacks in) was the science. The psycho-babble surrounding Bethany and the other inmates of the hospital, the description of Gabrielle’s own injuries and convalescence, and the descriptions of the hazards of global warning are all well detailed and accurate. This is a well researched book.

Is a pity then that when the protagonist starts to fall apart, the entire storyline unravels as well. All the development of the characters in the first part of the book is quickly demolished as Gabrielle becomes unhinged and obsessive and Bethany stops being crazy and just appears as a normal, snarky teenager. The dialogue gets hard to follow and the jumble of time and space stops being clever and simply starts to be distracting and hard to follow. Its as if Jensen didn’t have a plan for the book and was quite unhappy with where it ended up, but unable to turn it around once it got there.

There is of course, a number of apocalypse clichés, including a predictable and unnecessary one right at the end of the book. It’s too neat a wrap up for the story – Gabrielle is mean and tough and then she has a minor breakdown and then suddenly all her pieces just fall in to place just as (predictably) the world is ending.

The Rapture is worth reading just to watch Jensen weave magic with the English language. She is truly a master of the art form and you are guaranteed to add to your vocabulary by the end of the book. But don’t expect a surprise twist in the ending – you can predict what happens next after the first three chapters and the story wearily delivers it up.

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Sep 27, 2009

Nicola rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: arc, own

Reason for Reading: Apocalyptic fiction is one of my favourite sub-genres.

Summary: It is the not too distant future and the world has entered a new phase, one where global warming has happened and temperatures, weather and climates are no longer what they used to be. Gabrielle Fox is a wheelchair bound art therapist who has started a new job at a Psychiatric Hospital, home to Britain's most dangerous children and she has been assigned the most dangerous of all, Bethany Krall, who br...moreReason for Reading: Apocalyptic fiction is one of my favourite sub-genres.

Summary: It is the not too distant future and the world has entered a new phase, one where global warming has happened and temperatures, weather and climates are no longer what they used to be. Gabrielle Fox is a wheelchair bound art therapist who has started a new job at a Psychiatric Hospital, home to Britain's most dangerous children and she has been assigned the most dangerous of all, Bethany Krall, who brutally stabbed her mother to death with a screwdriver when she was 12. Bethany also predicts the future, not just any future but future natural disasters (storms, earthquakes, etc.) and as Gabrielle realizes each one comes true she begins to believe her patient and feels guilt for not warning the thousands of people who die. A strange bond develops between therapist and patient with the position of authority often switching.

Comments: I'll start by saying I neither believe in the evangelical concept of the Rapture nor that global warming has anything to do with human produced carbon dioxide. These are the two main controversies presented in this book. I will also say that ultimately, I did enjoy the plot; the story of the Gabrielle and Bethany, the predictions and the ultimate race for survival as the apocalypse approaches.

Within this world there are two extremist groups; one The Planetarians who know humans are but a blip in the age the Earth and our time is over as dominant species and nature is taking its natural course as it has over millions of years in the past and a new organism will take our place as dominant species. On the opposite end there is The Fifth Wave, a mass convergence and conversion to Christianity who believe The Rapture is at hand. They strive to bring their friends and loved ones to the Lord so they to may rise above the clouds in the rapture. These people happily await the coming of the rapture. Neither of these extremist groups take a major part in the story until well into the book but near the beginning, being a Catholic, I wondered "well, what about Catholics? The author must know we don't believe in the rapture?" My answer came by page 75 when the main character states during a discussion of disparaging religion is general:

" I was taught by nuns," I tell him. " They couldn't see how tribalistic they were. Or how pagan. As for the traditions, it seems to me that the Catholic Church enjoys just making things up as it goes along. You could almost admire its creativity."

Right, anti-Catholic view expressed, noted and understood. Catholics are not ever referred to again in the book. I was not impressed with the overall anti-religion attitude carried on throughout the whole book. Though I don't share the same convictions as the Christians portrayed here it was insulting the way they were shown as smiling, happy, ignorant people joyfully walking to their probable deaths. No respect was shown when conversation turned towards this group. The reveal that comes out about the leader is cliched and unoriginal. While on the otherhand the leader of the Planetarians is treated with respect, while professional people scoff at his ideology, he is, afterall, a man of science.

I was also underwhelmed by a love affair that happened and felt completely out of place within the story and otherwise out of character for the strong roll Gabrielle was playing elsewhere. There were pages and pages of this romantic misunderstanding drivel that I just wanted to shout "Get over it already!".

Otherwise, the book is well-written, it reads fast. The momentum is there slowly picking up and ending with a crash. Bethany was an outstanding character, the one who really shines through and kept me reading. Even with the religious problems I had, I realized the slant very early on, and accepted it as part of the story. It is fiction after all. I liked the book but didn't love it. I think other reviewers will say they have felt emotional over the book; it didn't affect me emotionally at all. I couldn't see myself as plausibly being in this world Jensen created. However, I do think this book will appeal to many people. The topic of climate change is one many readers will want to explore in this visionary apocalypse of our planet's downfall from human doings.
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Sep 05, 2009

Bettie rated it

Shelves: young-adult, published-2009, psychology, lifestyles, fraudio, environmental-issues, britain-england, apocalypse, seven-seas

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Aug 21, 2009

Stephen Horan rated it

A Girl, seemingly troubled in several ways; her strict religious upbringing, her willed yet devastating visions and her lack of family and peer affection.

As you read this, at times you want to love her yet there are times when her vicious tongue makes you want to give her a good slap.

The heroin of the story 'Wheels', is an Art Therapist with the single minded vision to fix the troubled girl. This is poetically achieved as only Liz Jensen can provide.

The Ra...more

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Aug 13, 2009

Sara rated it

I had a hard time piecing together a review for Liz Jensen’s The Rapture, an apocalyptic eco-thriller. Though I found the book hard to put down, I also found aspects of it irritating. The story centers around a therapist, Gabrielle, assigned to treat a young murderess, Bethany, and things begin to get interesting after the patient begins to have alarmingly detailed visions of natural disasters--all of which come true.

The story begins as a creepy religious thriller set in a psychia...more

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Aug 11, 2009

Liviu rated it

Shelves: 2009_release_read, read_2009, mainstream

I am still undecided about this novel - it has a great premise and two great characters - the narrator is a wheelchair bound psychologist after an accident which killed her boyfriend and with lots of issues and secrets of her own - and a teenager who is imprisoned in a high security children ward on the edge of England who killed her mother by stabbing her with a screwdriver tens of times

All happens in a near future which is even more unsettled than today and the girl's father is a f...more

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Aug 03, 2009

Corinne rated it

If a teenager who is incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital for savagely murdering her mother begins to spout out gibberish that may just be foretelling disastrous events of the future, would you believe her? This is what her therapist, Gabrielle Fox, has to grapple with as she sorts through the mind of Bethany - who is anything but cooperative. In a foreseeable future where the climate is changing and believers already suspect that the end is near, Gabrielle has to deal with the thankless task ...more

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May 13, 2009

Rhlibrary added it

Shelves: jen-s-picks

The marketing copy calls it Girl Interrupted meets The Dead Zone and I have to say it is spot on. As the novel opens, 16-year-old Bethany Krall is in a psychiatric hospital for brutally killing her mother and is assigned to Gabrielle Fox, a young therapist recently crippled in a car accident. It seems Bethany's previous therapist left under mysterious circumstances and Gabrielle soon understands why. Still struggling to come to terms with life in a wheelchair, she is easily manipulated by the tw...more

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Jun 27, 2011

Nicola rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, dystopia, young-adult

This one was pretty disappointing. It wasn't bad- it just lacked focus. I really like the premise and it sounded like an interesting plot but it was poorly executed. I felt that the story and characters were all over the place and it wasn't very compelling. Bethany started out as a really interesting, crazy young girl but she randomly turned quite normal. I liked the idea behind the book but it did feel a bit preachy and unfocused. It wasn't awful...just nothing to get excited over.

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Sep 24, 2011

Mary Gilligan-nolan rated it

This was a very interesting read, a story that could so easily be a future reality and in that sense, it is quite terrifying. The premise is, a psychologist called Gabrielle Fox, who has just returned to work on a six month contract after a car crash that left her paralyzed from the waist down, is assigned the case of a sixteen year old girl Bethany, who killed her mother with a screwdriver, some two years before. The strange thing about Bethany is, that she is given regular bouts of E.C.T. (sho...more

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Jul 11, 2011

F.R. rated it

In the near future, a young disabled psychologist is assigned to look after a genuinely psychotic teenager convicted of killing her evangelical mother. A fairly unpleasant assignment in the best of circumstances, but this girl – Bethany Krall – claims to have visions of the future, and the bizarre thing is they’re all coming true.

Climate change meets faith and religion, meets the end of the world in this horror/sci-fi tale that leans a little more towards John Wyndham than J.G. Balla...more

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Jul 28, 2009

Caitlin rated it

Shelves: 2009

When I was in middle school, we lived in Dallas, Texas. One of the things I remember vividly from living there was a huge billboard of what Dallas will be like at The Rapture. A huge Jesus towers over the skyline & souls are wafted to heaven from the cars moving along through the rush hour freeway traffic. To be honest I went back & forth about requesting this book for review because the title led me to believe it might be like that billboard & that's just not my thing. Turns out, it's not L...moreWhen I was in middle school, we lived in Dallas, Texas. One of the things I remember vividly from living there was a huge billboard of what Dallas will be like at The Rapture. A huge Jesus towers over the skyline & souls are wafted to heaven from the cars moving along through the rush hour freeway traffic. To be honest I went back & forth about requesting this book for review because the title led me to believe it might be like that billboard & that's just not my thing. Turns out, it's not Liz Jensen's thing, either.

The Rapture is a literary eco-thriller. The plotting is good, the characters feel real, the situation feels absolutely plausible, & as a reader you care what happens.

The strength of this novel lies in the two main characters who are both real & heartbreaking. Bethany Krall is a disturbed teenager institutionalized after she kills her mother with a screwdriver. Gabrielle Fox is an art therapist assigned to Bethany's case. Bethany is eerily correct in her predictions of natural disasters. Gabrielle is newly paraplegic, dealing with the consequences of an accident that has shattered her world.

I appreciated just how crazy Ms. Jensen allowed Bethany to be. So often when dealing with mental illness in adolescents writers give us watered down versions of depressed adolescents or abused drug addicts that we can all relate to & feel sorry for or good about. If you want to understand how far outside the norm children & teens who are institutionalized with psychiatric disorders are, just think about how broad the behavioral permissions are for kids & teens & then imagine what someone who falls far outside of that norm might be like. Ms. Jensen has done that with Bethany & she is frightening & real & pitiable &, in the end, admirable.

The heartbeat of this book is the narration of Gabrielle Fox who is trying to do her job, to live her life, & to sort out what being paraplegic is going to mean for her life. She is intelligent & ironic & self-pitying & often very funny. Thrust into a wheelchair, her dealings with Bethany & her predictions combine with her daily struggles to create a narrative that is both moving & entertaining.

There are images here that are unforgettable - the Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro toppling over after a hurricane, miles of dead jellyfish, graffiti only readable by satellite written in luminescent dye from the crushed shells of crustaceans, the faithful gathered in a stadium (reminiscent of the Superdome in New Orleans) waiting for the Rapture that never arrives. The world may end with a great big bang, but some of us may survive it - not a comforting thought in these days of increasing global warming & economic meltdown. (less)

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Jan 07, 2010

Erin rated it

I'll admit, I have a tendancy to get a little too engrossed in a good book. A powerful story with characters I connect with can actually have a physical impact on me - my stomach churns, my heart races, my palms sweat.

That said, after turning the final page of The Rapture by Liz Jensen, I felt like I had just run a marathon. The book is full of emotion, tension, suspense and well-researched information -- all of the ingredients of a great novel.

The Rapture introduces Gab...moreI'll admit, I have a tendancy to get a little too engrossed in a good book. A powerful story with characters I connect with can actually have a physical impact on me - my stomach churns, my heart races, my palms sweat.

That said, after turning the final page of The Rapture by Liz Jensen, I felt like I had just run a marathon. The book is full of emotion, tension, suspense and well-researched information -- all of the ingredients of a great novel.

The Rapture introduces Gabrielle Fox, a beautiful but deeply damaged clinical psychologist. Paralyzed from the waist down, Gabrielle has come to Oxsmith, a hospital for criminally insane youth in Hadporth, England, to start anew personally and professionally. She leaves behind a tragic and traumatic history in London that has left her broken physically and emotionally.

Gabrielle becomes fixated on one of her art therapy patients, 16-year-old Bethany Krall, the daughter of a fanatical Faith Wave pastor who brutally murdered her mother two years earlier. Bethany is having apocalyptic visions of natural disasters worldwide, drawing highly detailed and accurate pictures of events that have yet to happen, from a megahurricane in Brazil to a major earthquake in Istanbul.

Gabrielle spends the rest of the book trying to decipher Bethany's disturbing prophecies, to determine whether the girl is a psychotic or a gifted and to figure out how much she's willing to invest in the visions - and the millions of lives at stake if they're true. The therapist's personal drama is backdropped by scenes of global political upheaval, disease, climate change and social chaos that further whip the book's atmosphere into a frenzy that builds toward a truly unforgettable ending.

I thought Jensen's writing was breathtaking. She uses language that is rich in both imagery and vocabulary -- I think I would have loved the book no matter what its topic, just because of the way the author writes. Her characters are deeply flawed and very human -- although sometimes frustratingly so. Gabrielle is at times infuriating in her self-doubt and paranoia, but her troubled psyche is key to the plot.

The story is sometimes painful to read, and Jensen doesn't pull her punches. This is apocalyptic fiction, folks. Don't expect a sunshine-and-rainbows ending. The events contained within are disturbing and realistically plausible, and have very well given me something else to sit up at night worrying about. Jensen's end-of-days horror is not a recycled asteroid-hits-Earth scenario, but a well-researched threat that I'll look forward to reading more about in the future.

Jensen does infuse the end of The Rapture with a shred of bittersweet hope for the future, uncertain and difficult as it may be for her characters, and the world. (less)

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Sep 10, 2009

Tez rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 18, 2012

Katie Grainger rated it

The Rapture is a not so futuristic novel which sees the principle characters dealing with a climatic disaster. Bethany Krall, a disturbed, psychotic teenager is predicting earth shattering natural disasters but the worst is to come, she can see something far more shattering on the horizon. Gabrielle Fox a paralysed psychologist is tasked with taking over the care of Bethany after her predecessor leaves the secure hospital and what follows is a number of revelations. At first Gabrielle is skeptic...more

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Jul 15, 2009

Alex rated it

Shelves: first-reads

First of all, I dislike when publishers describe a book as a cross between one well-known novel and another. I think that it makes the book seem unoriginal and uninteresting which is not the case. Plus, this book is nothing like Girl, Interrupted. (I have not read the Dead Zone.)
So in the first chapter the author lays it on kinda thick with the Armageddon stuff and I started to feel set up -- although with a title "the rapture" i let it go. It's a lot of title to live up. Kee...more

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Aug 07, 2010

Lisa rated it

I encountered this novel in an airport bookstore and was lured in by its play on the Christian term “rapture” and the interplay between religious questions and psychological thriller. When it comes right down to it, this novel is a Hollywood blockbuster waiting to happen. The protagonist, a psychiatric counselor who was recently paralyzed in a traumatic car accident, is called upon to treat a psychotic teenager who, on top of killing her fundamentalist mother, sees strange visions of the end o...more

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Jul 26, 2010

Daniel Parsons rated it

· review of another edition

Fast-paced quasi-scientific thriller that tells of an on-coming, and quite convincingly realised, apocalypse apparently predicted by a young teenage girl undergoing electro shock therapy at a psychiatric institute - a girl who brutally murdered her mother with a screwdriver. The Rapture rattles on quickly and impressively, and the narrator, a paraplegic therapist who is attempting to have a "breakthrough" with Bethany, the girl who can seemingly predict natural disasters, is an excepti...more

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May 21, 2011

Sonia rated it

· review of another edition

I had this book on my ‘To Read’ list for AGES, and finally got it in the Kindle Spring Sale a couple of weeks ago (an absolute bargain for £1.23!). So, I finished a couple of days ago, which was rather fitting considering apparently today is the latest prediction for the Rapture to happen!

The story centres around Bethany Krall (a teenage girl who has been held in a mental institution for two years since she brutally murdered her mother with a screwdriver) and Gabrielle Fox (her new ...more

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About Liz Jensen

Liz Jensen was born in Oxfordshire, the daughter of a Danish father and an Anglo-Moroccan mother. She spent two years as a journalist in the Far East before joining the BBC, first as a journalist, then as a TV and radio producer. She then moved to France where she worked as a sculptor began her first novel, Egg Dancing, which was published in 1995. Back in London she wrote Ark Baby (1998) which wa...more

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