My major problem with this novel has nothing to do with the preachiness of it. It actually was somewhat convincing in that way. I find that stories involving the Book of Revelations or the Apocalypse are very interesting (for example, "The Omen" movies, The Stand by Stephen King). I like the idea of a clear cut battle between good and evil.

No, my major problem with this book is that it begins with exactly the same scenario as Stephen King's novella turned TV miniseries, "The Langoliers." You're on a plane, you wake up to realize that people all around you have disappeared, leaving behind their clothes and jewelery and even things that were inside of them such as pacemakers. What happened to them? In King's story, the plane had traveled through some kind of time warp and the surviving passengers, who had all been asleep, were transported back a few minutes in time. Considering that this novella was published years before Left Behind, and the miniseries aired around the same time this book was published, it really makes me wonder if the authors of this book heard this idea, then said, "But what if it was the Rapture?"

I had to read this book for a class in Young Adult Literature. The timing was somewhat poor, because recently I've been dealing with some full-blown religious people who didn't understand my idea for an anti-Valentine's Day teen program at the library called "Voodoo Valentines." I hadn't been planning on teaching the kids anything about voodoo, it was just a way to say that we were going to decorate goth-looking dolls, and calling them "voodoo" would make them appeal a bit more to boys. Yes, people actually thought I was going to teach kids how to make voodoo dolls so they could get revenge on ex-boyfriends or something. Anyway, I thought the book was okay despite a kind of preachy subject. It almost made me want to read the Bible. Almost. I've read parts of it before, especially the Book of Revelations (after watching "The Omen"). But this book really wasn't for me. The writing was just okay, it was more the plot that kept me going. The characters were pretty flat.