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The Book Of Rapture (2009)

by Nikki Gemmell(Favorite Author)

2.64 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0007300352 (ISBN13: 9780007300358)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Fourth Estate (GB)

review 1: I've really enjoyed Nikki Gemmell's 3 previous novels, but this one for me was just a little too 'try hard' to be left of field for it to actually be enjoyable.I get that this was a story based on religion vs science, but it took a stretch to assume a lot of the parts of the story that were purposely left blank for the reader to use their imagination to fill in those blanks.Perhaps my imagination had checked out for the duration of reading this book, but on he whole I just didn't enjoy it.
review 2: One of the first things I noticed about the Book of Rapture is that it is told in second person present tense, ie. "You watch your children bickering..."It took me a couple of pages to get used to the style, but once I was in, it became like a strange sort of dream.... moreThe story is a diary, told by the mother, who, like a guardian angel, watches over her children in this strange new environment without being able to act or change anything. The story jumps between the 'present' with the children in the locked room and the 'past' as the writer remembers things that brought them all to this point.Every 'chapter' is short - no more than a few pages - and ends with a quotation relating to belief and religion. Most of them are from the Koran or the Bible, but a few come from more random sources - in one case, C. S. Lewis.At first I thought the book was really weird. But as each small chunk finished, I thought 'why not just read the next bit - it's only another page' and before long I had finished.It was a dream-like trip with no really solid form or location - like most diaries are I suppose. I mean who bothers reminding themselves where they are or what, exactly, they are doing. Not that this book needed solid form. It achieved what it set out to do - to move its reader emotionally and make them quesiton the nature of science and religion - all the more vivid through the experiences of those innocents caught in the middle.I quickly came to love the three children and though I could not condone their mother's earlier ambition, I could empathise with her path to redemption.I was left wondering what had actually happened, but I definitely got the point. This is the sort of book where you have to leave your 'head' behind and just feel. less

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