Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days

OK - I normally read / listen to fantasy and science fiction. In fact, when I started listening to this series I was listening to Stephen King's The Dark Tower series and waiting for the Song of Susannah.

What an excellent surprise this was. I was pointed to this series by a friend and was at first skeptical, but gave it a try anyway just to see what it was like. The more I listened, the more excited I was to hear more. I am now five books into it and can't wait to get to the next one.

Even if you are not religious, you will enjoy this book and this series. It is well written, the characters are well developed, and the plot is great.

Pluses for the Christian reader - learn more about the prophecies of the end-times, jewish beliefs, and portions of scripture. Explore your relationship with Christ while hearing about what the characters are going through.

All around, a very very satisfying listen / read for me and I highly recommend it. Don't be scared off by the religious content if you are hesitant about that. And if you are attracted to the series because of the religious ties, you won't be disappointed, either.

I had read this entire series, but enjoyed the audio version even more. Excellent narration. This series is knowledgeble and backed by the scriptures. A must read by christians and an encouraged read to all!

Too much religious overtone. Story is great but could have been told from a more neutral perspective and been more interesting.

Not planning on downloading the remainder of the series.

This series drove me nuts!! There are so many things that were simply aweful, yet I downloaded the entire series in less than three months. Let me be fair and first say what I liked about the books.

I found many inspirational moments that made me contemplate and deepen my faith. That's the biggest draw. I don't fully agree with the author's interpretations, but the entire journey of the books made me examine where my heart was, and I found many moments of deepening closeness with God. Also, in the early books, they were good at hooking you and making you want to know what happened next.

Now ... why they drove me crazy. They are terribly written. There are logical gaps throughout the series. There are too many to mention, but suffice it to say the factual or physical circumstances laid out in the first books are caste aside as people and things that could not happen according to the first books continue to appear in the latter. And it isn't because God made it happen. They just do.

The authors are misogynistic. Particularly in the early books, there is not an intelligent, well-rounded female character to be found. The women are shallow and flighty, and respond to all circumstances in a stereotypic fashion only very young men would think realistic. This improves over the series, but I never see myself in any of the female characters.

The narrator drives me nuts. He needs to listen to his earlier narrations and make up his mind. Throughout the books, his accents for different characters is all over the place. One day, a character sounds like an American midwesterner, the next day, Dracula in a bad Ed Woods movie. The pronunciation of names and cities also changes from book to book.

Like all successful authors, the editor must have lost heart. If these were written books, you'd skip whole chapters, but you can't glance at an audio book, so your stuck listening to it all.

They were worthwhile, but could have been so much better.

In general christians unconciously (or not) tend to imagine some of the less than pleasant scenes (future or past) in the bible not actually taking place being. This book makes an effort to present one possible interpretation of the end times as a real life situation and has you think how would you deal with it. This is obviously a challenge for the authors but they do a pretty good job.

Whether the actual interpretation is correct (pre-trib / post-trib etc) is probably less important than :

1. It makes you think about the whole issue
2. It is a good clean adventure story
3. It will likely leave you wondering what will happend next (and ready to buy the next one in the series).

It is the first christian tradition based fiction I have read and I certainly enjoyed it.

Probably the best part of the book is its attempt to describe in some way what it might be like to find parts of your family disappeared in the rapture and you were "left behind".

No particular complaints about the narration.

I have listened to this book and read it. I think it is a must have for my libary.

It's a must read for anyone. It's interesting and enjoyable.

I was seriously disappointed in this book.

I was aware that this book and the series was a best-seller, but that was about all I knew prior to listening. This book is for those readers who attend church more than once a week, and who try to “save” all of their friends. I was hoping for a book about the end of the world. What I found was a predictable storyline that was bordering on arrogant, militant Christian propaganda.

One of the main characters spent much of the book feeling guilty about impure thoughts regarding another woman while he was married. I’m not sure why his guilt was discussed at three different times in the book. He never acted on these thoughts and frankly I am not sure that he should feel that guilty.

I am not alone. My wife, who attends church and bible study, also tried to read the book and stopped before she was half way through.

If you want to see an excellent movie involving militant Christian Propaganda I strongly recommend “Kingdom of Heaven” but I would not recommend this book.

This is an intriguing look at bible prophecy from one prospective. While it does start off a little slow it is necessary to learn and get to know all of the wonderful characters. THe charecter invovelment, as they tell the story from each point of view, is amazing and I really feel I can put myself in their shoes. It is a fabulous story that really gets you thinking!

I purchased this because it was in my list of recommendations. Even though I have other books waiting to be listened to, I bumped this one to the top. Wow! Very suspenseful even though you knew what was happening because of the book description. I don't know if I will listen to the entire 14 book series, but will definitely give volume 2 a try.