American Rapture is wild take on apocalyptic horror. Imagine if COVID merged with another horrific virus turning people into sex-crazed zombies. It’s not difficult to believe something like that could happen. The story focuses on 16 year old Sophie, on a mission to find her missing brother, in a zombie filled hellscape. Along the way, we get a found family and Barghest 🐾. I really enjoyed this one, but it was brutal.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I was so excited to read American Rapture. Meave Fly was my favorite book of 2023!

Ironically I read this book while dealing with crazy health issues and surrounded by illness and people dealing with their mortality. It was the perfect book to get me through that.

Sophie is a sheltered catholic girl who had just lost her twin brother to a religious intervention. During an apocalypse, a disease which causes the infected to lose their minds and become overly sexual, Sophie finds herself with a makeshift family.

I loved Sophie’s character as she comes to terms with who see is, what she believes and how she can control her own destiny.

By far my favorite character was Barghest the dog. I’m a large dog owner. And his love and unconditional support of Sophie made me cry.

Loved this second novel from CJ Leede. Make sure to read the author note at the end.

Wow wow wow. I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t read the author’s previous work (but now I will). This was incredible. Sixteen year old Sophie is coming of age during a virus outbreak. She’s been sheltered her entire life, raised Catholic in a small town. We watch her grapple with what she’s been taught and what she finds as she goes on this journey throughout the novel. She meets many people who all are all great side characters. I usually don’t like first person POV, but here it was necessary, because we are seeing her thoughts and beliefs be challenged. I was scared, stressed, sad. And then the ending? I’m not okay. Highly recommend.

My favorite book of 2024 so far. Absolutely phenomenal. I finished this last night but couldn’t type up a review because I was too busy sobbing. I haven’t had to put a book down for a moment because I was crying so hard since I read Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow. For a horror novel to pack such an emotional gut punch speaks to how great CJ Leede is at her craft.

Don’t get me wrong, this IS a horror novel. It has scary scenes that will stick with me. It’s bloody. It’s violent. It’s the end of days.

Leede’s themes around religious trauma were also incredibly interesting to read. The 16yr old main character grows up suppressed by her Catholic parents, then is thrust out into the world where not only is there a virus running rampant making those infected feral with just, but atheists (gasp) and homosexuals (double gasp) also exist. Leede’s writing is not preachy in this aspect. Instead, she challenges the main character (and her readers, since this is told from the POV of the main character) to think for yourself, to overcome Catholic guilt, to challenge the views forced upon us by our parents at such a young age; it’s being a good person for the sake of being a good person that matters, not because you’re terrified of burning in Hell for an eternity.

If I haven’t sold you on picking this up already, let me give my unhinged selling point: if you love Lady Bird, The Last of Us, or Ethel Cain’s Preacher’s Daughter album, grab this one.

Writing this, I just want to pick it back up and read it again right away. I wasn’t expecting to love this one as much as I do, but damn this was phenomenal.

Thank you Tor for the e-ARC!

Such a unique take on an apocalypse book. Leede is a master of storytelling and imagery. I was told engrossed in this story and loved the dog. Brutal, weird, and gut wrenching.

I’m a prude when it comes to sexually explicit content so it was uncomfortable to read parts of the book and I also don’t like religion in any regard in books, but still enjoyed it regardless

The writing has a literary bent that I really like. I did stop after chapter 2 (3%) but it feels like a solid 3-4 stars with 5 for the right readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

American Rapture is my most anticipated read for 2024. CJ Leede's first book, Maeve Fly, took my breath away and left me yearning for more. I wasn't sure what to expect with her new book, but it blew my hopes and expectations out of the water. This beautifully written apocalypse - end of world book is a must read for anyone trying to learn who they are, and learn from their parent's mistakes.

Sixteen year old Sophie has to flee the safety of her home during a pandemic, and partakes on a road trip to find her twin brother. Along the way, sheltered Sophie has to learn how to blend into the real world and navigate an ever changing and dangerous environment to stay healthy and safe. This book is wonderfully gory, and the characters are exceptional.

BRB on my way to re-read this book AGAIN.

Thank you kindly to CJ Leede and the NetGalley team at Tor/Forge for my ARC.

I recently finished reading "American Rapture," and I must say, my experience with it was pretty mid. Until the 75% mark, I found the story frustrating and difficult to engage with. The plot revolves around a zombie virus that inexplicably makes people sex-crazed rapists, which stretched my suspension of disbelief far beyond its limits. I need my fiction to maintain a semblance of believability, and this premise just didn't work for me.

Moreover, the author introduces a problematic relationship between a 16-year-old girl and a 24-year-old man. This age gap, combined with the way the relationship is portrayed, felt inappropriate and uncomfortable to read.

The setting, purportedly in modern times, is another area where the book falls short. The teenage characters use outdated language, which detracts from the authenticity of their voices.

As a native of Wisconsin, the portrayal of certain locations was also off. The author repeatedly refers to "downtown Dells," which is incorrect. Locals refer to it as "Wisconsin Dells" or simply "the Dells." This inaccuracy pulled me out of the story and felt like a missed opportunity for authentic representation.

However, as I pushed through the book, I found myself relating to some of the themes of religious trauma. The latter part of the story touched on these issues in a way that resonated with me, adding a layer of depth that was absent in the earlier sections. This connection was a redeeming factor, though it came quite late in the narrative.

While there were moments of genuine connection towards the end, the book's implausible premise, outdated language, and geographical inaccuracies overshadowed the positives. I can't wholeheartedly recommend it, but if you're interested in themes of religious trauma, there might be something here for you.

Absolutely incredible. American Rapture is a metaphor for human survival and a lesson on living your life on your terms while you have it. If the world was ending, would you like how you spent your life so far? Would you like how you're spending it now? And the themes of faith and control were *chef's kiss*. Leede makes you feel at home, rips your heart out, and puts it back together all at once with an ending full of hope. Hands down one of the best books I've read this year, and I can't wait to have it in my hands in October.

Imagine your coming of age story takes place amidst a zombie apocalypse. Everything you’ve been taught is true about the world is dramatically unravelled in a week, amongst a hellscape of death and destruction. But because of your “sinful” thoughts, you can’t help but wonder if God’s wrath upon the world is all your fault.

American Rapture spoke to me on the deepest of levels as someone who managed to break free from the idea that we are inherently sinful and must be meek, subservient and repentant to escape eternal damnation. Even more specifically, it speaks to me as a woman who wholeheartedly rejects and rebells against the notion that the world’s stability should fall on my unfaltering, pious shoulders because of my wickedness and inherent pull toward evil since “the beginning.”

Everything about this book feels calculated and intentional in the best way. Each character represents a part of our FMC Sophie’s literal and figurative journeys to unlearn her reality and reclaim herself. Sophie’s parents, brother, Maro, Barghest, Cleo, Ben and his mom, all exist to help her discover and eliminate pieces of her own identify in order to move forward and start fresh in this new world. The simple act of a librarian sneaking Sophie books completely changed the trajectory of her story, allowing her to entertain ideas outside of her immediate comprehension. Even the most heart wrenching, terrible things this book has us (and Sophie) experience feel important, painful, and necessary.

In the current setting, the worst thing that can happen is quite literally, to be overtaken by lust, as a victim or a perpetrator. Watching Sophie learn to decipher between normal feelings and a ravaging disease when she’s been taught to condemn herself for existing in her own body is fascinating. Watching her grapple with the complexity of good and evil as it exists outside of her “beige” living room, church and school is relatable and helped me remember the jarring nature of discovering all of life’s shades of gray for the first time.

American Rapture tackles some amazingly complex themes through the eyes of a teenage girl with such accuracy and poignancy that I could not put it down. It is a great work of science fiction and horror, but I think, more importantly, a fantastic coming of age story for any little girl taught that she was Eve, and should spend her life atoning for it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

CJ Leede has set up a truly horrifying apocalyptic scenario; a rampant epidemic of a virus that creates insane strength, hunger and lust. Violent raping zombies.

Sixteen year old Sophie was raised in a deeply religious home and community. This strict Catholicism suppresses her emerging curiosity and intelligence. When the virus hits, she is forced to go out alone to find her twin brother who was excommunicated, disowned and sent away.

Gory, terrifying, emotional. This is a coming-of-age horror novel that has big goals, examining religious cults, modern conservatism, the divisive and angry American political climate, censorship, self-acceptance, parental abuse, sex, God, Hell, found family, sin and forgiveness.

Leede builds a great cast of characters, flaws and all, and Sophie is a real teenager, anxious, dramatic, intelligent and yet annoying, stubborn, ignorant and full of unexpressed passion. And I loved her commitment to her new collected family and dog. I found myself wanting more of this ‘quest for safety, family building’ part of the story and less of the running from TWO villians, the zombies and the new religious nuts purging the earth of sinners.

There were scenes that were scary, scary SCARY! Some of the most terrifying scenes I have ever read. Which I loved as an avid horror reader.

In all, a well-written, modern and intelligent post-apocalyptic love story that scared the living poop out of me.

Oh, wow. American Rapture is gripping, I finished it over the course of two days in which every moment I spent not reading it, I was thinking about it. I can’t remember the last time a book called to me so urgently.

First, thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy of American Rapture in exchange for an honest review.

American Rapture is a brutal coming of age story set at the beginning of the apocalypse. We follow Sophie, a sheltered and repressed sixteen year old girl, growing up in an extremely religious household and community -- a girl who suddenly finds herself alone, facing the infected of the new plague, whose symptoms manifest as violent lust.

As Sophie attempts to traverse this new world on a quest to reunite with family, she encounters people along the way who inadvertently teach her about the world from which she's been sheltered.

American Rapture is about grief, loss of innocence, and hope. However, the core of the story teaches valuable lessons on the dangers of repression as it dissects the harmful religious indoctrination of the main character. The friends met along the way are not there to explicitly teach Sophie about the world to which she's very much a stranger, but instead, to guide her on her own path of self discovery.

This is an important novel that gently asks the questions (and encourages finding answers) that many of us, whether religious, on the fence, or full blown non-believers also struggle with. This is a novel that warns us about hypocrisy, secluding ourselves from people unlike us, and encourages diverse learning.

C. J. Leede has the emotional intelligence of someone who has lived a thousand lives. Each scene in each plot point is so carefully constructed as to make you feel exactly what the characters are feeling. There is an emotional honesty in American Rapture that is hard to find in modern fiction, and Leede wields it with unyielding mastery.

This novel will kick you in the face and spit on you while you're down. And from the same pages, it will lift you up and give you hope. This is one of the best novels of 2024.

You know that feeling when you’ve read something incredible, but feel a bit disappointed because you know there’s no way the author can top it? That was me with Maeve Fly. There’s no way CJ Leede can top this because it’s so so good. Then I read American Rapture. ⁣
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This story was one blood soaked traumatic experience after another and I loved every moment. A beautifully heart wrenching coming of age tale of a found family in the middle of a lust fueled apocalypse. It made me cry, cringe, and laugh. Don’t sleep on @ceejthemoment ! Grab your copy on Oct. 15! I can’t wait to see what she does next! ⁣
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Thank you so much to @tornightfire and @netgalley for the advanced reader, and of course @ceejthemoment for two of my favorite books. ⁣
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✝️🎠🌪️🧟‍♂️🐕

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for providing this book, with my honest review below.

There were different points in reading American Rapture where I put this book down for a second and said ‘what am I reading?!?’. This books draws you in and doesn’t give you a chance of getting away. In other words, I finished this feeling disturbed and ultimately absolutely loving it.

Its unique premise attracted me to this (and many others who I have described it to) but the cast of characters gripped me (including the dog… poor dog), and the idea of this virus that makes you extremely sexual coupled with our main character being an overly sheltered child of religious zealots really was like nothing else I’ve read.

Filled with gore and very disturbing, I’d recommend anyone who doesn’t mind all that because the plot is the definition of unique and the ideas explored were enticing.

Wow what a great read! The character work is some of the best I’ve seen in horror. I haven’t read Maeve Fly but it was on my radar but after reading this it is next on my list.

We follow Sophie who is growing up under extreme religious indoctrination where she is taught that basically every thing you do is a sin and the devil will get to you because of it. Her brother Noah gets taken away because his parents find out that he may be gay.
People start coming down with a sickness that is rapidly spreading across the states. Causing strange reactions and from there horror ensues.

From the first pages of this book I wanted to take Sophie and Noah away from their parents so I could love them the way they should have been. They felt so real and my heart just breaks for them. Thank you NetGalley for the ebook in exchange for my honest review.

#NetGalley #AmericanRapture

American Rapture, C.J. Leede’s STUNNING sophomore novel, is hands down the best book I have read this year.
In a world ravaged by viruses, fires, monstrous storms, and the shambling, lustful dead, one terror stands out above the rest: the Christian Right.

(But we all knew that, didn’t we?)

In a post-COVID America, this apocalyptic horror novel feels chillingly plausible. If Maeve Fly, Leede’s debut, was loud, this is even louder, practically begging to be heard. Every former Christian likely recalls the one thing that shattered their faith - a moment, a comment, a story that prompted a complete reevaluation - I certainly can. Witnessing it unfold for Sophie, our protagonist, in real-time is overwhelming, painfully familiar, a descent into absolute terror. The world tilts on its axis. The notion that this very question could constitute one’s greatest sin, their downfall, is profound. It’s a heavy burden to bear.

Yet, Leede navigates us through it with a depth only those who’ve experienced it can comprehend. That’s why I placed my complete trust in her narrative. This book teems with potential triggers lurking in every chapter, and while I’d typically proceed with caution, savoring each page, I devoured this one hungrily.

From the outset, it feels like being trapped in a pressure cooker. The tension steadily mounts until you’re fully immersed. It’s a terrifying, grisly, electrifying, sorrowful, hopeful, introspective, tender, and tragic journey. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Forgive me, Father. I've been a bad girl...

Imagine living your entire life in the dark. No cell phone, no tv, and no internet. Your parents only allow you to read certain books meant for younger kids and even thinking about the opposite sex will earn you a paddling. Now, what happens when a pandemic sweeps the nation and you're the last one to know anything about it? How would you handle this? All I know is that Sophie is in for one hell of a wild ride!

This book contains a lot of gore, violence, brutality of life, and a lot of heart. I didn't think that I would be sitting in my house with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face while reading this but here we are. Prepare yourselves for the gut punch that this book is. It's a powerful one, so you better come prepared.

CJ knows how to capture an audience. Her work is incredible and you'll become obsessed very early on. With her last book, she took the book world by storm and she is about to do it again with a completely different novel but still with a badass main character who you'll instantly fall in love with.

American Rapture was a phenomenal read by one of the new masters of horror. I loved every page and I can't wait for the rest of the world to grovel at the feet of CJ along with me.

Opening the pages of American Rapture we found ourselves wondering how CJ Leede would even come close to writing a story that is a good as Maeve Fly? Well, she did. American Rapture is a grim, gore-filled, heart-wrenching post-apocalyptic journey that will sit with us long after closing the book.


In American Rapture we are taken on a thrilling and blood-soaked journey through a post-apocalyptic America following a unique pandemic. The story follows Sophie, a young Catholic girl, as she navigates a world plagued by a virus that transforms the infected into feral beings consumed by lust. Leede gives us a perfect blend of a coming-of-age story with gruesome action and outright horror. A truly pulse-pounding horror novel.

CJ Leede's writing is nothing short of exceptional, which comes as no surprise to fans of Maeve Fly. She takes themes like survival, family, and sacrifice and weaves them together for intense and graphic scenes that left us horrified, captivated and surprised. Fans of Leede's writing will know she does an extremely amazing job at character development and this is no different in American Rapture. She takes Sophie from an innocent girl to a survivor willing to do whatever it takes to protect her loved ones.

Leede does not shy away from depicting the brutal realities of this new world, including a death towards the end that will hit some a bit hard, making for an immersive and unforgettable reading experience.

While the book is blood-soaked and gruesome, American Rapture has a nice balance of gore and heart. Some scenes are over-the-top intense, while others show more heartfelt moments for a perfect balance. There are plenty of bloody moments that will make even seasoned horror fans cringe, there are also moments of tenderness and vulnerability that add depth to the story. Leede manages to evoke a range of emotions from readers, from fear and disgust to empathy and hope.

Leede takes a typical post-apocalyptic story and turns it on its head. A devote Catholic virgin girl has to fight off humans turned into lustful creatures that are mysterious to the secular world let alone a sheltered 16-going-on-17 year old girl. American Rapture is not for the faint-hearted, but for those willing to brave its dark and twisted world, it rewards with an unforgettable journey filled with terror, heartbreak, and ultimately resilience in the face of unimaginable horrors.

CJ Leede's American Rapture is a front runner for our top-novels of 2024. Keep an eye out for year-end awards, this novel should be taking home a ton of them.

i'll be honest, when i first started i wasn't sure if i'd be able to push through and finish this because it did give me a lot of anxiety as it brought me back to 2020 when an apocalypse felt like it was right around the corner. the beginning of the apocalypse mirrored the covid-19 pandemic but very quickly turned into something different so once that happened i was less anxious.

there is a lot of unpacking religion and belief systems throughout this book that felt so real and i know that many will be able to relate to at least one character's feelings or story.

and i sobbed, of course, through the last 15-20% of this book. i got really attached to sophie's little misfit group she found herself with and just wanted them to feel safe. i really truly loved every single part of this book. i thought sophie, our sheltered catholic-guilt riddled queen, was the perfect and most unique point-of-view for this specific apocalypse. and also such a fun twist on your classic zombie apocalypse survival story.