American Rapture by CJ Leede was a dynamic read. It felt like The Walking Dead mixed with religion then a sprinkle of amazing characters with independent struggles. I enjoyed the character development and original storyline.

Wow.. yeah this one… this is one of those rare books that come a long once in a blue moon and really make you not only challenge what you’ve believed your whole life through merciless feats it also gives some of the most unapologetic hope I have ever experienced.

At the end of the day this story is about self discovery, and found/finding family and true love in its purest forms. CJ Leede holds up an amazing mirror to Dante’s inferno and asks the reader to look deeper and see what each circle maybe bring and what each of us hold within ourselves to climb our ways out (even if it’s kick and screaming and by the skin of our teeth).

The religious content is HEAVY, the deaths are ROUGH, and the emotional turmoil is GRUELING, but… somehow still… you manage to come out the other side. I hope those who read this book take what they need from it and choose to carry themselves forward in this world like a bird on the wind.

American Rapture centers around Sophie, a sheltered Catholic teen, who must fight to survive a deadly virus spreading throughout America. The virus not only makes you ill but will also make you sex crazy.

Slight spoilers and TW ahead...
I felt the synopsis for this was slightly misleading. The virus was described as making people "feral with lust" so I was expecting satire and horny people all over the place not full on assault and rape. Although there were some brilliant moments of Sophie coming to see how religion can be toxic and harmful, I wish we would've had other perspectives throughout the book. Overall, I thought this would be a fresh new take on the apocalypse media genre but it felt much like anything else on the market.

As for the audiobook, Moniqua Plante did a wonderful job as the narrator. She was able to convey all of Sophie's emotions and stress. I was even impressed by her male character voices. I look forward to more works by this narrator.

As someone who doesn't enjoy dystopian fiction or religion in general, I fear this book wasn't for me. The premise just sounded so different and interesting that I fooled myself into believing I would like it.

It was very well written, and I loved the idea of exploring the Catholic guilt and the deep seeded misogyny inherent to this culture.

There were many depictions of graphic violence that I had a difficult time getting through. I think if you plan on reading this one that you should go into it with caution.

Monique Plante did a very nice job with the narration. You could feel the terror and desperation in her voice.

Thank you, Macmillan Audio, for this ALC. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

✨ Review ✨ American Rapture by C.J. Leede; Narrated by Moniqua Plante

Thanks to Tor, Macmillan Audio, and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

I loved Maeve Fly, and so this was a book I was really looking forward to, and it absolutely did not disappoint! Set in a pandemic / zombie apocalypse-sort of world, where a disease is making its victims turn into sex-crazed monsters, Sophie, a sheltered Catholic girl, sets out to survive.

This is a book I love even more as I sit with it. The richness of the relationships Sophie builds on the run as well as the vivid scene-setting of the different places she ends up on the way have really stuck with me. The book balances just a bit of humor (the whole Frank Lloyd Wrong experience, the cheese curd stop... lol) with a thoughtful exploration of fundamental Christianity/Catholicism. From her love of books to her naivete, she felt like a character that was easy to root for, and I loved every bit of it.

Sharing more risks the experience of the story I think, so I'll leave it short!

🎧 The book is written in almost stream of consciousness - short, urgent, sometimes panicky thoughts. I found this to work really well in text, but wasn't a pleasant experience in audio for me.

CW: there's a gruesome pet death in the book that some may find really difficult to read; pandemics gone apocalyptic; fundamentalist cults of religion

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: apocalyptic sci fi / horror
Setting: Wisconsin
Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
Reminds me of: The Last of US
Pub Date: Oct 15 2024

Read this if you like:
⭕️ apocalyptic horror
⭕️ teenage character in a book not written for teens
⭕️ obscure midwest settings

[TW/CW: religious guilt, anxiety, mental abuse, sexual assault, body shaming, smoking, misogyny, sexism, drinking, toxic family relationships, homophobia, animal death (graphic) ]

*****SPOILERS*****

About the book:
A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust. Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin.
Release Date: October 15th, 2024
Genre: Horror
Pages: 384
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. Cover is gorgeous
2. Writing was okay

What I Didn't Like:
1. So so so many commas
2. Boring
3. Too many convenient things happening
4. Felt like the longest book

Overall Thoughts:

{{Disclaimer: I write my review as I read}}

On a shopping trip with Sophie's mom we get to learn why she's so stern in their religious background. It seems that her mom went to live with other religious people while she was going to college and let the way she dress change two more secular, so one day the man that she was living with sexually assaulted her. Rather than go to the police she took this as a learning lesson that she was the one to blame because of how she had dressed that it gave this man lust toward her. And how lucky she was that her husband still accepted her despite her not being a virgin. Religion is such a wild drug. It can turn someone being sexually assaulted into making them feel like they're the ones to blame. I remember watching a show that was showcasing an art exhibit in New York where women who had been sexually assaulted donated the clothes they were wearing at the time of the assault and 9 out of the 10 clothes were basic sweatpants and loose-fitting outfits. I encourage you to check it out. It's called “What Were You Wearing?”

Noah shows Sophie a magazine and their mother catches them. I wonder if Noah is gay. [I was right]

A tornado now??? *rolls eyes*

Geez does Sophie just want everyone? She's obsessed with Maro and then Ben and now Helen.

I feel like this book lacks focus. I mean what are we doing here???

Final Thoughts:
Dnfed this at page 277. I know I was so close to the ending and I could have got to the end of the book, but have you ever read a book where you just don't care what happens at the end? That is how this book made me feel. I started caring and towards the middle I cared less so by the end I didn't care at all. I really feel like I didn't miss out on anything not knowing what was going to happen.

Honestly this book tries too hard to be something complex and out there, but ends up just being boring.

This book left me feeling like it's a book about a girl that is so horny she wants to have sex with anyone that gives her attention. It was hard to tell the difference between the virus and her being so sexually obsessed. Times when I was reading it and I would think that she had gotten the virus but no. I understand being sexually repressed by her parents but I don't know if in the situation you would instantly be this hooked on every single person you talk to. You've lost your parents granted you were not close to them, but still your parents and you're on this desperate search to find your brother whom you don't know is dead or alive, but she stops to have these moments that she wants to be romantic and I just don't know how realistic that is to human nature.

I also found it so hard to believe that she didn't hear about ANYTHING that was happening in the world. She went to school and yes, it was a Christian school, but even teens would talk about these things. All these things are happening and there's no lockdowns she's able to still go to the library and school is just as normal, but this highly contagious viruses going around and the world is still functioning as normal.

This book is about two things;
• Her obsession with every human
• Must find Noah, Noah, Noah, Noah

Skip this and read the graphic novel Black Hole.

2.5 stars

I found the story in American Rapture to be compelling: a repressed catholic teenager has her sexual awakening amid a pandemic that turns the infected into sexual monsters. However, I found the main character to be boring (and I hated that there was a love triangle in the middle of the pandemic). This may be due to the narrator who makes Sophie sound whiny, breathy, and sounds like she's on the verge of tears for the entire book. After a while it gets to be too much to listen to. At about the 60% mark I was pretty over the book and was ready to just move on but I wanted to see how it ended so I continued. There were some interesting things in the book (especially the conversations about religion) but overall I didn't enjoy this one.

Wowza! Religion horror is one of my favorite subcategories within the horror genre, so it's no surprise that I devoured this book for two days.

This post-apocalyptic world is dark, feral, and intensely violent. Leede powerfully explores how religion and religious rhetoric can be wielded to justify hate—“all in the name of God.” While the theme of religious horror isn’t new, the story feels original through the lens of a teenage girl’s coming-of-age journey. Her internal struggles reflect the chaos around her, albeit not as extreme. Through the lens of coming-of-age, Leede explores themes of sexuality, morality, and identity. While much of the narrative delves into darker themes, Leede also illustrates beauty and hope through a found family trope. For example, I love how Ben tells Sophie that he chooses to smile because, in this post-apocalyptic world, it’s the only choice he has left.

I buddy-read with @amy_alwaysreading and @thats.one.for.the.books and thoroughly enjoyed examining the symbolism. There's so much to unpack—like the significance of the red hands on the hypersexualized zombies, the robes of the religious zealots, and that unforgettable scene with Barghest (you'll definitely know it when you get there!). Plus, the Wisconsin landmarks add such a fun layer to the story! Check out pictures of the House on the Rock! Leede describes it perfectly!!

Now, this book will not be for everyone, but for me, American Rapture is the best horror book I’ve read all year! Please, please check the trigger warnings if you have ANY triggers.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this eARC and audio ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book was insanely good! I expected to to like this book because the description sounded right up my alley but holy cow! I ended up LOVING IT! When people are looking for a horror book that centers religious trauma, this is going to be the first book I recommend. I loved how it was addressed from start to finish, how we as the reader were experiencing this deadly virus that pretty much destroyed society, through the eyes of Sophie, an extremely sheltered Catholic teen girl.

I won't say anything more because you just need to read this book! Please do check content and trigger warnings for this book because there are a lot of them including SA and a horrific animal death.

I immediately loved this cover and was drawn in. Then I kept seeing a lot of reliable sources love this one! So I had to have it. I am so thankful for this audio copy of American Rapture! It was a very interesting book. At first, I was hooked, it was so intriguing and immediately grabbed my attention. Towards the middle, I started to get a little bored as I felt it was somewhat monotonous. It wrapped up nicely and overall I did enjoy the book!

American Rapture has been on my most anticipated list since I read Maeve Fly last year so when I was approved for an audio ARC I squealed. I went into this expecting a lot of thing but what I wasn’t expecting was that it would reck me. There was a few times I had to step away and process, I will say the funniest one was sitting in a Bucees parking lot for a good 5 minutes yelling “It’s not SOAP!” The listening experience of American Rapture was amazing, the narrator really brought our girl to life and I would definitely recommend. Thank you NetGally and the publishers for the advice audiobook for me to review.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!

WOW!!! What a great book!! This one had me hooked from page 1! This was a first for me from this author and I will not be my last! This one was a win for me!

Meave Fly was a favorite for me last year so I was very excited to dig into this. Along with a hefty dose of religious trauma, thematically, this one was a lot more horror than Meave Fly. The plot itself is mostly a journey, and for some reason the constant location change doesn’t work as well for me as a more settled location does. But getting from point A to point B was never straightforward in this one and it was definitely action packed. Horror as a genre allows stories to go places of discomfort, and Leede was definitely not afraid to unsettle and get weird. The biggest weirdness is that the MC is very sheltered and young, so her perspective reads very much YA/Coming-of-age and there is just a lot of sexual tension between her and other characters. And while her experiences, desires and inner reckoning was very done really well, I constantly had the urge to look away.
I thought the story was easy to follow as an audiobook, things were pretty linear and the concepts were easy to grasp. I thought Moniqua Plante was great at capturing the urgency without overacting, but her voice did sound a bit more mature than the MC.
Overall I can’t decide how I feel about this one, I think it achieved what it set out to do as a dystopian horror novel questioning a very religious upbringing and how somethings don’t stand against reality, but I didn’t find the experience very pleasant within the horror genre.

After the boldness and horror of Maeve Fly, I was surprised by the overall restraint of Leede's second novel. There is definitely a lot to dig into here, and I was compelled by the juxtaposition of Sophie's personal journey with her faith and desires against the backdrop of an apocalypse happening in real time. That being said, I do think this is too long, and there are some beats that felt needlessly repetitive and straightforward. As distressing as the premise is, I didn't find myself challenged nearly as much as I was reading Maeve Fly, and I wanted to FEEL more from this than I ultimately did.

CW for the absolute worst dog death I've ever read.

CJ Leede does not miss! This book was such a great time, and a perfect spin on the zombie apocalypse story.

Never did I think a horror book would move me this much and render me almost emotional.

This is the story of Sophie, who grew up in a very religiously conservative home. Like many young women, it was beaten upon her that her virginity is sacred and must be preserved at all costs until marriage.

Amidst an apocalyptic epidemic where infected individuals develop lust, Sophie forms alliances while fleeing for safety and has to decide where our actual values and morals lie.

I really enjoyed the commentary about how toxic purity culture is, growing up in sheltered environments, and learning to be okay embracing values that may differ from those you were raised in. It wasn’t prescriptive or ham-fisted, but felt very natural as we watched Sophie grow into herself.

I normally wouldn’t gravitate towards an apocalypse novel, but this was well done.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!

4 ⭐️ I loved this book so much more than I thought I would, it just kept getting better as the book went on. I was left in tears by the end and the author's note should not be skipped. This book won’t be for everyone and I highly recommend you check all trigger warnings and know the subject matter before jumping in. This book is a coming of age story of 16 year old Sophie, who was raised extremely sheltered (no TV, computer, phone and Jesus portraits in her room) by very strict Catholic parents in a small Wisconsin community, who also share the same extremist religious views of how women should behave, dress and of course they promote sexual repression. Then add a pandemic of epic portions, a flu that takes over the nation and rapidly spreads and mutates to a lethal version that turns people sexually animalistic before it eventually kills you - think sex crazed zombies that brutally attack and then die. This is where the book almost lost me but honestly it works and isn’t nearly as dumb as it sounds, or maybe it is, I just accepted the messaging behind it all.

This book tackles religious trauma, loss and acceptance, grief and guilt over ones desires and sense of self, and of course set in an apocalyptic environment. This would make a phenomenal movie (fingers crossed)! It definitely reminded me of every single zombie movie I’ve ever seen but it added so much more depth and emotion coming from a single POV of a sheltered teen and I didn’t hate Sophie which is crazy since I typically dislike reading about teenagers. I loved all the supporting characters too, I love the found family aspect in times of extreme horror. It reminded me of Zombieland and how they’re a similar tight knit family, I just loved it. Overall, this one will stick with me for a while and I will RUN to read Maeve Fly since this was my first CJ Leede book and it won’t be my last.

Also, I highly recommend the audio it was done so well by Moniqua Plante, there were times I was so panicked and had to pause to take breathers. Even in times where the story slowed down in pacing I never lost interest. I finished this 14.5 hour novel in half the time and 1.5 days.

Notes this book contains:
* A lot of brutality, gore, death/killing
* A lot of commentary on radical religion

Huge thank you to MacMillan Audio and Netgalley for the advanced listeners copy in exchange for my honest review. This book is out now. #Macaudio2024

I liked Maeve Fly and this one sounded really good but I had a hard time getting into it. Perhaps the covid-like disease story just wasn't what I was in the mood for at the time. I also thought it was a pretty long book for a sci-fi/dystopian story and I had to DNF only midway in. The narration for the audio book was still great though and I was intrigued by the main character. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest thoughts. Not the book for me sadly.

Absolutely loved this one. CJ Leede is definitely an auto buy author after this sophomore novel. Different from her first but still just as consuming and layered. I expected to love this, but this surpassed my expectations. Can't say enough good things about it.

Received as an ARC from Netgalley:

This was absolutely outstanding. If you have any amount of history with the church this book will hit and it will hit hard.

A really well drawn apocalypse story that really gets to some of the issues at the heart of modern society.

C.J. Leede continues to be an author to watch. She's 2 for 2.

Be aware read the content warnings if you are sensitive to certain subjects as there was a death in this book that had me in absolute TEARS. It destroyed me.