I was equally apalled and sucked in all at the same time. This is the perfect horror book, holding tight to your heart and making your stomach swirl all at the same time. I was pulling for Sophie the entire time, her bravery against a world unknown and survival against a lustful gore dripping population is unbelievable!

With American Rapture, CJ Leede has crafted something that's equal parts horrifying and captivating, and it's going to stick with you long after you've turned the last page. At its core, this is Sophie's story. And if you have read and enjoyed Leede's Maeve Fly, just now you are in for a wildly different protagonist with Sophie. She's a 16-year-old Catholic girl who's been sheltered her whole life, and suddenly she's thrust into a world that's literally going to hell. There's a virus turning people into lust-crazed maniacs (kind of like Crossed if anyone recalls and/or will admit familiarity with that series) and Sophie's got to navigate this nightmare while questioning everything she's ever been taught. Leede doesn't pull any punches here. The violence is brutal, the sexual content is intense, and the religious themes are going to make some folks uncomfortable. But that's the point. This book wants you to squirm, to think, to feel. What really works is how personal it all feels. You're right there with Sophie as she's figuring things out, making mistakes, and growing up way too fast. It's messy and raw and sometimes beautiful in the most horrific ways. The side characters add a lot to the story too. There's this whole "found family" vibe that gives you something to root for amidst all the chaos. As a warning, there is an incredibly awful animal death in these pages, and, in the afterward, the author explains a bit of why that is. Personally, I get it. I didn't like to read about it. But I *get* it. Leede's taken the apocalyptic genre and injected it with a dose of coming-of-age drama and religious introspection. It's not always an easy read, but it's definitely a memorable one.

I haven’t read this authors other work, Maeve Fly, but after reading and loving this one I’m definitely going to have to pick it up!

I really enjoyed this story and I definitely see it being a huge hit once it’s released.

First of all, I’d like to thank NetgGalley, Tor Publishing Group, and CJ Leede for allowing me the opportunity to read this prior to the release.

I had a very difficult time rating this book. American Rapture is an apocalyptic coming of age story that follows our main character, Sophie, as she tries to navigate this new world where the infected are full of violence, rage, and sexual desire. Sophie has grown up a sheltered Catholic and taught to be afraid of eternal damnation which doesn’t allow her to ever truly be herself, she quickly begins to struggle with where her truth lies as the story unfolds. CJ is not afraid to break your heart and make you uncomfortable in order to get her point across and I feel like she was very intentional with her messages. The main themes explore religious trauma, religious hypocrisy, family trauma, misogyny, “sin”, self-worth, and so many other topics. Please be aware this book is very heavy on and revolves around sexual-assault.

I think this will be a read that a lot of people can relate to which makes it that much more traumatizing. I’m excited to see what everyone has to say about this one!

This book was such an amazing experience. Yes it’s horror and yes there’s violence and yes there is heartbreak, but there is so so much more. There is dealing with the purity culture so many of us grew up under, the shame and guilt of a big bad God in the sky looking to punish us, and deconstructing from all of it during the middle of a pandemic that is ending the world, at least the United States.

Following Sophie’s harrowing journey, the heart behind who she is becoming and the choices she has to make. Her love for her brother is beautiful and heartbreaking, how she would walk over hot coals and broken glass to get to him.

The virus is weird and uncomfortable, but it’s also a way to force us to look at ourselves, our guilt and shame we carry around, and maybe see ourselves for who we are - good.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Tor Nightfire for the advanced copy

Religion, coming of age, end of days, apocalypse, virus, band of misfits, final girl + a kick ass dog.

A virus is spreading. Sophia, pretty unaware given her sheltered upbringing in an uber strict catholic household, ends up having to confront her fears and a world unhinged as she tries to a) stay alive, b) face her fears and c) try to find her twin brother.

There is ALOT going on in this story, but it works. How the virus impacts the infected, how the world reacts to the virus, how survivors help or hurt each other, the bonds and emotions of survival, the complexities of love when the world is ending around you. There are a handful of supporting characters you’ll be rooting for, none more than a loyal dog that will steal and wreck your heart. It’s CJ Leede. It’s safe to say you should expect triggers at every step, a MC that evokes mixed feelings, and strange descriptive backgrounds that help you visualize the story landscape.

I’m loving the work of this author.

❤️‍🔥 “I am adrenaline. I am fire. I am a girl desperate to stay alive” ❤️‍🔥

Sophie, a sheltered girl with a strict religious upbringing, is suddenly thrust into the real world when a virus begins to ravage the nation, turning the infected into lustful, violent monsters. She sets out across the Midwest in hopes of finding her long lost brother as the world burns around her.

American Rapture was one of my most anticipated releases for a few reasons. One being that Maeve Fly was one of my favorite reads from last year, and second being that I grew up in the Catholic Church, so horror books that explore religious trauma are 100% my thing.

I absolutely adored this book, and I ended up reading more than half of it in one sitting. This is an apocalypse drenched in blood and Catholic guilt, and at times it feels like we’re traveling through Hell itself. It is scarily appropriate for the current political climate we live in, which only made the experience that much more anxiety-inducing.

This story is a testament to the human condition, showcasing characters who crave human connection in a time where that can be a death sentence. Heartbreakingly, Sophie only got to start truly living once the world started ending. This is a book packed full of action, tension, and plenty of emotions.

This book hit so close to home for me on so many levels, but I’m sure you will enjoy this book even if you’ve never felt Catholic shame before 😅 Thank you so much to @netgalley & @ceejthemoment for letting me read this one early. I’ll probably be getting a physical copy when it releases, because this was such an incredibly powerful and important story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This has been one of my favorite reads of the years hands down. Initially, I was worried this premise could go off the rails rather quickly, but I’m glad to say I was blown out of the water. The writing was captivating and while there are a lot of disturbing moments, I didn’t feel it was over the top or exploitative of the characters. Throughout the intense page-turning moments my heart was with Sophie as she grappled with her religious trauma, and her sexuality all while dealing with the horrors of the world around her, physical, political, and philosophical. This story was brutal but with just excellent writing that is really poignant and thought-provoking. I do encourage people to check the trigger warnings before reading though as there is a lot of graphic content.

As a side note, as someone who grew up in Wisconsin, it was fun to see a lot of locations in the book that I’ve been to in real life. If you’ve never been to the House on the Rock, I cannot stress enough how wonderful and truly bizarre it is. It is the perfect place to put in a horror novel.

The gripping apocalypse story you didn’t know you needed, American Rapture breathes fresh life into the largely overplayed “end of the world” novel.

Across America a terrifying new virus transforms people into their worst selves, slavering, feral infected who go mad with lust and tear apart anything in their path. By the time people realize just how dire the situation is, society has already broken down; institutions can't protect the people and a zealous denomination of evangelicals adds fuel to the flames of what they consider to be the end of days. As the world around her falls into chaos, Sophie, a devout catholic girl, goes on a perilous journey to find her twin brother amidst the fire and ruin of the rural Midwest. Along the way she meets a compelling cast of characters and barely manages to avoid death or infection at every turn.

While the action and world building are top notch, where this book really shines is in portraying Sophie’s inner struggle to unlearn the shame and restriction of her upbringing and finally think for herself for a change. Written like someone who struggled with their own religious upbringing, this aspect of the book was easily one of the best, in a book that was overall very high caliber.

Compulsively readable, this novel feels like watching an exciting, poignant movie and makes you wish it were the first in a series instead of a stand alone book.

What if zombies were horny? Leede sets up a repressive, controlled environment for our hero, and then lets all hell break loose. Heartbreaking and faintly gross, American Rapture brings our hero from a christian school and a controlling family into a hellstorm of sex-driven flesh eaters. Her only refuge is with the strangers she meets along the way to finding her brother, and no refuge lasts long. Perfect for horror fans.

Wowowowowow. When I say I like reading horror books, THIS is what I'm talking about!

CJ Leede's observations about Catholicism are razor sharp. I grew up Catholic, and there were points in this book where I had to stop for a few minutes, just to stare at the wall and process what I read. Her examinations are so acute, so specific, and so completely accurate. It truly is the most fear-based, dread-inducing, guilt-ridden subsect of Christianity.

We watch as Sophie grapples with her natural teenage curiosities - a stark and dangerous contrast to the shame and humiliation accompanying her inner-most thoughts. But repression can only go so far, especially as the world you know begins to fall apart.

"𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒔 𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒕𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒍𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆."

As a fellow Wisconsinite, I also have the added benefit of picturing the atmospheric elements this book has to offer. The fact that The Dells was like heaven on Earth to Noah and Sophie honestly cracks me up, and makes this picture of their sheltered life all the more palpable.

I loved how different this book is to Maeve Fly, while still maintaining so many of the same elements: lust, guilt, and violence. Another reviewer likened Sophie to Carrie White, and I couldn't agree more. She is a victim of her environment, to the things being done to her, and the events she is forced to endure. At some point she turns against her manufactured expectations and blows, and you find yourself saying "good for her!"

This book solidified CJ Leede as an auto-buy author for me. I will purchase each and every book she puts out without question. I wish I could give this book six stars! I highly recommend you check this one out. A huge thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to honestly review this book ahead of publications!

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and Netgalley for letting me read an eARC of American Rapture by CJ Leede. American Rapture was an absolutely incredible take on zombies that was a joy to read. The joy came from the character development that made the misfortunes befalling our main characters completely soul-crushing. Sophie and the crew she picks up across her desolate journey in search of her family allowed me to become the most invested I've been in a novel in a long time. If you love horror with human drama at its beating, bloody heart, you need American Rapture.

Wow, definitely 5 stars and added to my favorites!

In this book we follow Sophie, a 16 year old girl raised in a devout catholic household, as she tries to survive a pandemic in which a viral infection causes aggressive lust and ultimately death in its infected.

Fair warning: there is a lot of graphic content in this book. Check trigger warnings if needed before reading

I enjoyed Maeve Fly and was excited to pick up CJ Leede’s next work American Rapture. Similar to their previous work, this novel is graphic and shows humanity in all its forms. I absolutely loved it and devoured every page! There are several characters we meet throughout this book and each one is fleshed out and nuanced. Sophie was such a great lead and each supporting character was just as strong. The ending was beautifully written and smartly done. Truly a beautiful and heart-wrenching book.

CJ Leede has become an auto-buy author for me and I cannot wait to read her next work! Highly recommend to horror readers, particularly fans of Maeve Fly.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for access to this eARC in exchange for an honest review! I cannot wait to pick up a physical copy of this work

American Rapture weaves themes of coming of age, religion, and family trauma into an apocalyptic story that is impossible to put down. The brutal elements of the plague are contrast with the tenderness of Sophie growing up and coming to terms with everything she was indoctrinated with since birth. CJ Leede writes with an accomplished ferocity that compels the story forward so adeptly. The characters are fleshed out and dimensional and the story evokes a roller coaster of emotions

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'm still not 100% sure about my final thoughts on this one, but I blew through it in a day and had a great time reading it. It's a mix of apocalyptic violence, religious zealotry, and coming-of-age charm.

Trigger warnings for days, but I'd expect nothing less from the author of last year's Maeve Fly (my favourite read of 2023).

C.J. Leede’s 2023 debut, Maeve Fly, presented us with a gleefully sociopathic protagonist. Maeve is an unapologetic hedonist, masochist, and, well, murderer. In Maeve Fly, this proud middle finger to female role expectations and to discourse about the “likability” of fictional characters, is set against the backdrop of the world of the Disney Princesses. Maeve works as a princess in the park, and the contrast between her extracurricular activities (consuming porn, listening to Halloween music, weird sex, and murder) and the well-scrubbed image of the princess does a lot of work. It doesn’t hurt that in Maeve Fly, we know that the Disney mythology is just that, myth, a cleverly spun illusion used to sell an experience and merchandise.

It’s a testament to the power of Maeve Fly that Maeve is so “likable.” Even at her worst, there’s a core of damaged humanity lurking underneath, and–let’s face it–she’s a hell of a lot of fun.

In her follow up, American Rapture, Leede flips the script.

Sophie is the sheltered innocent, held captive by her parents’ decidedly extreme version of Catholicism, and tormented by her body’s hormone-fueled transformations. She is the princess in the tower.

In other words, she looks a lot like a Carrie White, ready to explode, perhaps transforming into something very much like Maeve. And who knows, had the world allowed it, that might have been her trajectory, but the normal course of teenage rebellion and religious trauma is hijacked by the end of the world.

A virus sweeps through the North East, into the Midwest, transforming the infected into violently sexual animals that rape, kill, and mutilate everything in their path. It’s an apocalypse tailor made to push all of Sophie’s buttons, and the traumas pile up one after the other as she finds herself alone and then, slowly, part of a found family, as she searches for her missing twin.

At literally every turn, this plot–and there is a lot of plot–is colored by Sophie’s own burgeoning sexuality. This is, as you might expect, troublesome, given the circumstances. It’s especially troublesome for Sophie, who has been taught to feel the most extreme shame and guilt at her own desires.

What Sophie gets is the slow and painful process of becoming an adult (questioning received wisdom, becoming a sexual being, being challenged by competing belief systems, having one’s heart broken) all compressed into the space of a week or so.

It’s a lot, and it would be a serious bummer if Sophie’s found family weren’t so compelling and dynamic. Early on in the book, I thought to myself that what Sophie needed was a Maeve, someone to shake her out of her shame spiral and teach her some of the simple joys of pleasure. We don’t quite get that, but we do get Cleo, a perfect mentor for Sophie’s hero’s journey. As much as I love Sophie, Cleo absolutely steals the show, presenting the adult figure who knows that the time is much too short to play the games of patriarchy, and who recognizes herself in Sophie. Her character is a monument to the power of truth-telling. She is the enemy of every taboo, and a kind of warrior queen.

American Rapture begins in trauma, and the trauma doesn’t let up. That goes for Sophie, but it also goes for the reader. Leede is uncompromising, and knows no boundary. It’s the apocalypse, and in the apocalypse, people die. That those deaths are so powerful says a lot about the depth of the world of American Rapture.

Leede has built something out of the raw materials of Maeve Fly: desire, pleasure, guilt, and violence, and she has remixed them into something very different, something that might hold out some slight chance for hope.

It’s is a roadtrip through the heart of a country turned sick on its own hypocrisy and hate, a Dantean journey into a moment that feels very much like our current historical moment. It’s also a love story, a coming of age story, a dog story, and a guided tour through a surreal midwestern landscape. It’s a little bit of everything, and it’s pretty much guaranteed to rip your heart out.

An epic tale that tore me into so many different directions. From a woman struggling with faith to watching her world burn around her, to found families and loss. American Rapture wasn’t what i expected it to be and i think i’m okay with that. Some parts felt a bit long or drawn out but the emotional scenes are so solid, the world building is terrifying and immersive. CJ Leede is a fantastic storyteller and having been a Maeve Fly fan i knew i’d enjoy this one.

i am seated. the tor nightfire employees are scared and keep asking me to leave because it’s “not october yet” but i am simply too seated. american rapture is if the last of us, ethel cain, apocalyptic horror, religious trauma, found family, and midwest emo were compiled into one novel, which is genuinely my ideal reading situation — and should be yours too. cj leede never quits and never fails, and this book just proves her entirely upwards trajectory in the horror genre. it’s refreshing to see more women writing splatter *about* women, while also revamping the typically cishet space with queer voices, and i hope she never stops. as she has said, leede focuses on the places, and settings play a heavy hand in her novels; this one is no different. being born in the midwest, i never thought id want to visit wisconsin with my own free will, but here we are. i cannot get enough of this book, i recommend it to everyone who breathes near me 50 feet in any direction. please do yourself a favor and preorder this book immediately.

Thanks to Netgalley, Tor, and CJ Leede for an ARC eBook in exchange for an honest review.

This is exactly the kind of book I was hoping it would be, as the second novel from the author of Maeve Fly - one of my favorite books of 2023.

Nothing about this novel disappoints.
CJ Leede is an author who makes bold, provocative choices - but with intention. I really respect her for that. She certainly doesn't shy away from the darker stuff here, in American Rapture.

But this. novel. ATE! (No crumbs were left.)

Public Service Announcement...
CJ Leede IS the moment.
American Rapture IS where it's at.
PeriodT.

Is it as good as Maeve Fly?
Well, yess!
I think it's now safe to say Maeve was just the jumping off point for CJ... And I couldn't be more excited to follow her horror journey. American Rapture cements her as an author my lil horror-loving heart will be closely following.

I guarantee this book is gonna rocket it's way into many horror lovers hearts and on to their Top 5 of 2024 lists.

It resides securely in the #1 spot for me,... And it's going to take one hell of a behemoth of a book to knock it out.

Full Review coming in October. (Publication Date: October 15)

What a blast. So this is about Sophie, a teenager raised in an incredibly conservative family, told from her perspective, as a pandemic spreads. The virus, later called Sophia, has both flu like and sexual rage phases. There's a lot of zombie/virus/body horror stories/movies I thought of at that description, but I think this actually falls somewhere between the religious fanaticism of John Water's 'A Dirty Shame' and the spitting sadism of 'The Sadness'. Also, make this story a movie, it would be so good.

And I loved it.

Sophie is a great POV character that tries to understand the world around her and continues to position things from the perspective of someone who hasn't experienced anything--or is told it's all sin.

I loved Leede's previous book, 'Maeve Fly', and continue to see her strong writing style and applaud her for the creative use of violence.

Side point: I loved the Wisconsin setting. I haven't been there but the setting is so well described it felt like the reader was there. Also, the Trixie Mattel reference, legitimate question: does she know? I think she'd love to know she's referenced in a horror book like this.

Side point spoiler: <spoiler> I really enjoyed the ending but I see that it could upset folks. To that, I'll say it's an apocalypse horror story. You have to know what you're getting into and that in such stories, no one is safe. The religious fanaticism feels accurate to the kinds of extremes seen during Covid 19, and while it is A LOT, it forces the reader to confront the danger and horror head on. </spoiler>