Author: Rob Stennett
Book Name: The End is Now
I’m Glad it Wasn’t Called: Rapture or Crapture?
Book Synopsis in Twitteresque 140 characters or less: A town obsessed with the rapture believes a boy has prophesied the end is now. A town and a family are pushed to the brink. Chaos ensues.
Where I Bought It: What do you know…another book I didn’t have to buy! Rob Stennett was kind enough to send me a copy of the book to review on my blog. The question is, will I actually review it on my blog??? (answer: of course I will, you’re reading the review right now, genius.)
Paid for With: Selling a piece of my soul. Don’t worry though, it was a piece I wasn’t really using.
How Long it Took Me to Read: I started it in June on vacation and read about half of it. Then it got lost in the cabinet above the phone for over a month. I picked it back up a few days ago and finished strong.
Who I WOULD NOT recommend this book to: Jon and Kate Gosselin. There’s more important stuff for them to be reading right now than apocalyptic, satirical fiction. I would also not recommend this to anyone over the age of 65. Rob uses way too many pop culture references for people who were born before Truman was president.
Who I WOULD recommend this book to: People who grew up in the church and have spent more than a few minutes wondering about the rapture, the end of the world, and such. Also people who have read the Left Behind series and think it is the best treatment of the topic. (for the record, I have not read the Left Behind series, but feel confident that this book is way better. like, totally.)
What I used for a bookmark: Can you guess? Either a Honus Wagner T-206 baseball card or the Zondervan info sheet that came with the book. I’ll never tell and you’ll never know.
What did you like about the book: Two favorite things about Rob’s writing:
1 – i love all of the pop culture (and christian culture) references he throws in. Just shows he’s on the ball and made me as a reader feel like i was in good hands. Does that sound weird? Maybe. But when you get the sense that the author knows what he’s talking about, you tend to trust him to take the story where he’s taking it. At least I do.
2 – I also really enjoyed the dialogue between characters. On more than a few occasions I found myself thinking, “that’s exactly how I would have said that.” Always nice to read a novel that has normal-sounding dialogue.
What did you NOT like about the book: Compared to the second half of the book, the first half seemed a little slow at times. Not a painful “something better happen soon or I’m going to throw this book away” slow, but more of a “I can tell some cool things are going to be happening and I wish he would get to them faster” kinda slow.
Expectations Going In: I hadn’t read fiction in a while and wasn’t really looking forward to it. Especially since this is “Christian fiction” and that is usually “not as good”.
Cannarf Rating: Overall it was an enjoyable read, that grew stronger and stronger as the book progressed. The premise of the book is a bit crazy, but it is treated in a way that really makes you think “if this was the way things went down, I bet this is the way things would go down”. When I finished the last page, I felt satisfied with my time invested and also with the ending, which is all you can ask for with a novel. Happy I read it, and I think you would be too. The Rating: +2 cannarfs. (what’s a cannarf?)
Have any of you read The End is Now? If so, what’s your cannarf rating?