Dear Author,

This was a crazy fucking ride! Not only did I relive some religious trauma, but I was also reminded of my freedom from religion. This was a tough read, besides religious triggers, a lust virus turns this into one horrific, amazingly told story of the end of it all.

I was fortunate to get the audiobook arc, the narrator, Moniqua Plante, did a fantastic job, I felt everything.

Yours truly,
J. D. McCoughtry

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, for the chance to listen to this audiobook arc.

First and foremost, I want to say that CJ Leede's MAEVE FLY did not personally impress me, but AMERICAN RAPTURE sounded interesting, so I wanted to give Leede another chance. Unfortunately, I ended up disliking AMERICAN RAPTURE *more* than I disliked MAEVE FLY, which I honestly wasn't expecting.

Mostly, I just majorly struggled with the pacing and the structure of it. I feel like the length of the book was completely unnecessary compared to how little actually happened. Additionally, I feel like the goal of the protagonist was literally just shoved aside. After a point, it was just them wandering around Wisconsin making no headway on anything. People died, things happened, and there wasn't really a POINT to anything happening in the plot after a certain point.

A lot of scenes were definitely thrown in there for shock value, which other reviewers have mentioned (namely the dog death). A big part of the disease is being sexually aroused, so there's quite a few rape scenes. There's also a few scenes in which the group is thrown into chaos of wherever they were staying, and are forced to get out. But what frustrated me the most was that these scenes were for nothing. They didn't even push the protagonist towards anything. When the book finally ended, it just led them into more of the same of what we were already reading, just promising to do the same.

Overall, I was just frustrated because, despite the potential of a horror book taking place during a spreading virus/quarantine situation like this, the whole construction of this book was abysmal. The road trip aspect was cool until random stuff is thrown in, completely pushing off the end goal. People are killed for no reason with no impact. Personally, I find no enjoyment in horror that's just blood and gore with no POINT to it.

This doesn't even go into the fact that the author obviously didn't do their research of Wisconsin.(going from Rusk county to Waukesha, why the fuck would you go to Taliesin? Seriously?) Nor did they do any sort of research on the spread of infectious diseases, because how would something get so bad to literally BURN DOWN half of America, but not touch a single other country or make it to California? Maybe I misheard the audiobook, but I distinctly remember the talk about California, which to me is just WILD.

CJ Leede's American Rapture is a haunting and unforgettable exploration of religious trauma, survival, and the human spirit.

Leede's writing is both visceral and poignant, drawing readers into a world of fear, uncertainty, and the shattering of innocence. The novel's apocalyptic setting serves as a backdrop for Sophie's personal journey of self-discovery, as she grapples with her faith, her past, and the terrifying reality of a world on the brink of collapse.

Trigger Warning: Readers should be aware that American Rapture contains graphic depictions of violence, sexual assault, and religious trauma.

Moniqua Plante's narration brings Leede's characters to life, conveying their emotions with raw authenticity. Her performance enhances the novel's impact and makes it an immersive listening experience.

If you're seeking a thought-provoking and emotionally intense read that delves into the depths of human resilience, American Rapture is a must-have.

Thank you NetGalley, CJ Leede and Macmillan Audio for the ALC.

“Women’s beauty draws the darkness. It is the darkness.”

I thought I knew I what I could expect reading American Rapture. I was wrong in the best of ways.

I wasn’t raised religious so Sophie’s experience was new to me. CJ Leede handled it with such care, from explaining Sophie’s sheltered life and the guilt that never stopped haunting her.

Pandemic type horror stories have started to become my favorites. All bets are off and they have this way of magnifying both the beauty and ugliness of our world. American Rapture was no different. It’s scary how much of it I could see happening in real life.

While I 100% expected to have a good time, I didn’t expect to almost be left crying in the grocery store as I was finishing. There’s a found family element that made this more emotional at times. Every character Sophie surrounded herself with forced her to grow and step outside of her comfort zone, resulting in a beautiful cheater arc.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. It comes out on Tuesday, so go preorder it!!

This book gutted me. It made me tear up multiple times. If you like dystopian this is your book. The characters are so raw and real you feel like you are right there with them experiencing everything they experience. I listened to the audiobook and it was fantastic. Highly recommend.

⛪ARC REVIEW⛪

American Rapture by CJ Leede
4/5 ⭐

This one was wild, y'all (in a good way)! It follows a teenage girl during a plague that makes everyone lust to the point of violence. She was raised in a very religious household, and when she has to navigate the new world she has to confront the world views that were taught to her.

This book reminded me a lot of The Stand by Stephen King. It made me so angry at times, I had to put it down and walk away (and I mean that as the highest compliment to the author.) If you like Apocalypse horror, this one is for you! Just make sure you read the trigger warnings ⚠️

Please read if you like the following:

🛐 Dark coming-of-age stories
🛐 Religious revelations/paradigm shifts
🛐 Post apocalyptic survival stories
🛐 Horny zombies 🧟

🏷️ #bookreview #bookrecommendations #bookstagram #books #booklover #bookworm #bookstagrammer #reading #bookish #bookaddict #booknerd

Sophie has grown up in a Catholic household, upholding the values that have been taught to her and leading a sheltered life. News is filtered through her parents and she has little to no contact with the opposite sex. That all changes when a virus begins to ravage her town, ripping across America and causing the infected to become sexually violent. She must leave her sheltered existence, having her faith tested, and gaining friends along the way.

First off, Sophie is a fantastic character. I found her entirely believable (and related to her heavily, having been raised Catholic myself.) The guilt is layer upon layer, an onion that she must unravel as her entire worldview is called into question. She meets a found family of characters, each that I cared for more than the last, all so well fleshed out that I could practically see them.

The world that she’s thrown into is horrifying—an absolute hellscape. This is the world in which she must battle what most certainly are natural feelings of sexuality, but they are seen through the lens of her religion and fractured through fear of a sexual disease. This increases her shame and fear of these feelings even further—the disease mirrors what religion does.

Ultimately, this novel is about exactly what the author says in their note: guilt, shame, faith and the questioning of these things. Sophie grows through much through her curiosity of life, through her constant need to learn and question even in the face of fear. This book doesn’t turn away from the dark and horrific nature of religion, and shows that shame of any natural feelings can only lead to more fractured thoughts.

I loved this book from start to finish. It is highly character driven, and being in Sophie’s head was such an believable delight that I was sad when the book ended. Thank you so much to the publisher and netgalley for an advanced audio copy in exchange for an honest review.

Out Today!

𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙯𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙢𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨: 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙤𝙣’𝙩.

Horror is definitely not a genre I read often (ever?), but the premise for this one sounded intriguing, and the reviews thus far had been good, so I thought I’d give it a shot, and while it seems weird to say I “enjoyed” it, I can say I was definitely sucked into the plot, and grew to love the characters, and, well…it’s a zombie apocalypse, so you know…😢

There’s a virus outbreak, causing infected people to become horny zombies, and we’re following a significantly sheltered 16 year-old-girl, who knows nothing of the secular world.

Along the way, we meet several new characters, and there are definite found family vibes (but beware, this IS a horror novel).

There’s danger everywhere, as in any zombie story, but also a lot of heart, and a coming of age story for the MC, as she faces her past, and all the religious beliefs she has been surrounded with her entire life.

If you enjoy books that deal in faith, religious, and sexuality, and don’t mind a heavy dose of gore and darkness, I think this novel is definitely worth checking out!

Audiobook notes: I thought the narrator did a great job!

Thank you @macmillan.audio for providing me an advanced audio copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

What this book is giving:
✅ Horror
✅ Virus Outbreak
✅ Zombie Apocalypse
✅ Horny Zombies
✅ Sheltered 16yo girl
✅ Catholic Guilt
✅ Coming of Age

Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ / 5

American Rapture follows Sophie as she tries to find her twin brother Noah in the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse in Wisconsin. Sophie has spent her life growing up in a sheltered, religious community without access to television, the internet, or even newspapers. When a viral apocalypse hits that sends the US into turmoil, she comes home to her parents having succumbed to the virus in the...unique way that this one hits.

Throughout the book, Sophie is reckoning with her religious upbringing and how she has seen the world for her entire life - much of her inner thoughts deal with this and how she thinks about attraction, which is also complicated by the virus's side effects.

I really enjoyed the different elements coming from Wisconsin as someone who lived there for a long while and thought the premise was very interesting. In the end though, I had a hard time connecting with Sophie and found a lot of her thought processes to be rather melodramatic. This does make sense in the context of the book given that Sophie is 16, but meant that it just didn't quite work for what I typically enjoy reading.

I listened to this as an audiobook and thought the narrator did a great job bringing Sophie to life and would recommend it for sure.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and to MacMillan audio for the advanced copy.

I have a lot of feelings about this book. A lot of them are personal and heavy. I didn't find this book as scary as Leede's first book but I did enjoy it more. I grew up in an extremely religious environment so this book's effect on me was visceral. This story hurt in a lot or place and I do wish it had some trigger warning but really thats the only complaint I have.
I definitely don't see this being a book for everyone but I can see it being extremely popular with those it is for. Those of us with some deep deep religious trauma can definitely benefit from this. Also just those who enjoy horror. Overall this is a heavy book but a really good one.

AMERICAN RAPTURE by C.J. Leede.


Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for this alc.

I believe this book was marketed incorrectly. The descriptions I found say it is “horror, adult, fiction”. This story is told by sixteen year old Sophie, who was raised in a very sheltered catholic home. She was homeschooled for most of her life with her twin, and at sixteen years of age she goes to a Catholic school.

Exactly. The story is a horror novel told by a teenage girl. And what we read are the challenges faced by this Catholic girl in an apocalyptic world, the exploration of her identity, the process of discovering herself in this world falling apart. The book grapples with issues such as friendship and first love, and depicts the character’s teenage angst. And nowhere and no one say this is a young adult horror novel?

Well, here I am. I’m here to tell you this is a YA book. I’m not a big fan of YA, so the story has a very interesting plot but I felt the execution was just ok. The audiobook was narrated by Moniqua Plante who did a brilliant job and kept me going with this story. Like I said before, this is an apocalyptic story. It gets crazy, and the author does a great job showing that in times of fear people can tend to pervert things even more than they already have.

I recently listened to one of my most anticipated novels of the year - AMERICAN RAPTURE by CJ Leede, author of my favourite 2023 read, Maeve Fly… and sadly, it’s just not for me :(

The story follows a sheltered catholic 16 year old Catholic girl who enters mainstream society after a pandemic hits. The infected turn violent and rabidly sexual. This disturbing outbreak obviously transforms her beliefs and wreaks havoc on her psyche.

So for me, heavy religious vibes are often a hard pass and maybe I should’ve seen that aspect of the story coming from the blurb and the cover art but I honestly wasn’t expecting it and found it kinda’ meh 🫤 The pacing felt slow, despite attempts at high action, and the narrator didn't bring anything special to the story in my opinion. And one more thing… the severe animal cruelty is seriously cringe.

Although the book has received great reviews, it just wasn't for me. However, CJ Leede's debut novel, Maeve Fly, still holds a special place on my All-Time Favorites list.

This book was… wild. Dystopian thriller/ science fiction/ horror-ish where a pandemic of lust sweeps across the nation.

Sophie is our main character who is very religious as she tries to resist the symptoms of the virus. She has been very sheltered and we get to see her POV as her beliefs shift throughout the journey of this book. By sheltered- I mean no technology, only specific approved books, no access to information. When she hears about the pandemic, it seems she is the last to know.

This book was great, but not for me. I should have read the reviews more before reading. Lots of sexual assault, a horrific animal death scene, and gore. I am not a big horror fan person, so I did find myself skipping over their sections.

It’s not this books fault that my preferences lie elsewhere, and I do think it was beautifully written. Audiobook- narration was great.

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review. Release date 10/15/24

Somehow even better the second time around. I read a e-arc back in June and decided to revisit it via an immersive read when I got early access to the audiobook.

That last sentence killed me. The whole book has me in a damn chokehold. I thought Maeve Fly was great, but this one is really freaking special. The narrator perfectly captured the vibe of the book. Sophie, as a protagonist, was utterly fantastic. As a former catholic girl, I felt this on such a deep level and love how vulnerable Leede gets with her audience. She is doing great things for the genre right now and I cannot wait to read/listen to anything she writes.

One of my favorite reads of the year, no contest. I absolutely LOVED this audiobook and it really made this material even better.

There's something about the world going completely unhinged that I love reading about so much. And woh - the book just takes the cake! This goes from a young girl whose been so sheltered by parents who are religious fanatics to absolute horrors of people affected by a virus that made them go batshit crazy sexual. I absolutely enjoyed the unraveling of everything surrounding Sophie - the horror, the found family, the hellscape that she encountered throughout the most insane scenarios. You want apocalyptic horror with emotional attachment to a dog that you'll fall in love with? You've got it.

Just start this - whether on audio or reading the book. You'll shift from enjoying zombie-like horror to reacting upon religious fanatics to just breaking down along Sophie when - you know when you know. I don't want to say more than that, but once you read that part - you'll break down along with her. And the author's note about it later on will just make you love the author even more. This was a fun and thrilling read, but also just a damn good book.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, the publisher, and MacMillan Audio for a copy of the audiobook. All opinions are my own.

Hot dang, those acknowledgments made me teary! This felt like an extreme, technicolor, Mandy-esque version of my experience, and that of many others, escaping organized religion. This was hard to read at times because of how real (even if exaggerated) so much felt. The religious messaging that our FMC is trying to unravel and unlearn is painful to relive, the extremists in this “dystopian” time feel like groups of people NOW that hurt my brain trying to understand, and on and on. Sophie is a struggle to root for in the beginning, but certainly not by the end. And all of the side characters she meets along the way were lovely. Sophie’s coming of age in the midst of a violent pandemic is still somehow beautiful even though there’s so much hate and darkness around her. This was a really beautiful story, and I FELT it all by the end. But there were times during where it felt a little slow or I was wondering where it was going or I couldn’t get past Sophie’s naivety (even though it’s not her fault). All in all, another banger from Leede with, for me, a lot more emotionality than Maeve Fly but also a bit less fun. As always, check TW please!!

CJ Leede wrote something really special with American Rapture. It's slow, sometimes aching beautifully so, capturing the moments of mundanity as the world ends around our characters. I found myself getting so comfortable, even in their world of fear and uncertainty. I kept having to continue to remind myself that this story, though hopeful, is one of immense sorrow and violence. And yet I loved every moment of reading it. I loved the main character Sophie's journey from sheltered, extremely religious teen to a woman trying to make a better world through the power of knowledge and human connection. I loved the complicated relationships between the small family of survivors Sophie cobbles together. And I loved Leede's prose, her descriptions of gore and violence are second to none here. I'll be thinking about this book for months if not years to come.

I thought this book was well written and interesting. I wasn't even halfway through it when I went ahead and ordered CJ Leede's other offering, Maeve Fly. There were parts of this book that felt a little heavy handed, or even a little repetitive. For a portion of the back half of the book it felt sort of meandering like there was really no clear plot or possible resolution. But even then I thought the writing was good enough and the characters interesting enough that I wanted to keep reading it. The ending was satisfying in terms of resolutions and I was happy with how it wrapped up.

3.5 ☆
-
I don’t even know what to say about this book! This was strangely weird, uncomfortable, and a little cringeworthy. I don’t know if I liked it or not. I was highly intrigued by what was going on in this world, but at the same time, it was weird and uncomfortable. Yeah, this book will probably make you lose your mind, lol. Check the trigger warnings before reading this book.
The audiobook was good. The narrator did a good job telling the story and was super easy to listen to and understand.
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Thank you. Netgalley, MacmillanAudio, and Tor Publishing for the audiobook and ebook in exchange for my honest review.

2.5 rating. This one was not for me. I liked the concept and it is well written but boy is it melodramatic. It was like reading a CW show. Everything was so verbose and didn't feel natural. It's very pretty writing but felt like a well educated adult describing everything not a 17 year old sheltered and highly religious teen. Sophie is somehow super naïve and highly intelligent. These aren't mutually exclusive of course but she is written as too smart to think some of the things she does. Her leisurely reading of manuals did make sense but felt a little to convenient in an apocalyptic story. Her struggle with what she has been taught vs how the world actually is, is interesting and a highlight of her journey but even at the end it felt like she was still kind of stuck in a middle ground and had not fully come into her own. Most of the side characters were solid though.

Everything is big, dramatic, horny, and shameful. Some parts if you really think for two seconds about what's happening are tough to read but I like that Leede didn't shy away from the horror a virus like this would cause. The story was too drawn out for me as well. It took a long time to go almost anywhere. At the 50% mark I jumped ahead to 80% to see if I would be lost and I was fine.

I am sure this will hit for some (especially if you have religious trauma), but honestly the fact that everything was so dramatic and an ordeal took me out. Would have loved more quite moments to really bring things home. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor for this Arc in exchange for and honest review.