DNF at 45%

The general plot re: beginning of the End of Days was fine. If the author had stayed with that, I could probably overlook other narrative difficulties. Probably.

But the romance story line killed this series for me. A thirty-year-old globe-trotting journalist who’s still a virgin? Sure, it’s possible. But it was introduced in such a way that it felt contrived - engineered by the author to make the character more sparkly clean and pure.

And his love interest. A spoiled brat, ten years his junior, who plays all kinds of “read my mind and guess why I’m mad” games; but who became highly offended when her childish behavior is pointed out. By the time they reconciled, I was ready to bitch-slap her to New Babylon and back.

Maybe I’ll try the series again, someday. But not this week. ( )

Good book. I read this over the summer and it was very interesting. A little less action than Left Behind but still a good book. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are great writers. ( )

Excellent read. This story does seem to move a bit slow, but that's to be expected, I guess, since there are so many books in this series. ( )

Book 2 in the Left Behind series that takes place after the rapture covered in Left Behind. The Tribulation Force consists of Rayford Steele, his daughter Chloe, reporter Buck Williams and Pastor Bruce are meeting regularly to help them and others prepare for what is coming. The world is changing everyones lives are heading for huge changes some are aware, others do not and think all is well. ( )

Ok, I tried, I can't do it.

I was going to do a quick reread of all these Left Behind books over the next few weeks but the gripping story line (which I don't necessarily dispute, to be clear) is not enough to force me to suffer through the horrendous writing style. I was doing ok (to put it graciously) until the 18 month jump ahead in the last quarter of the book. Waaaaay to much info, too fast. Rayford's new wife comes out of nowhere with very little back story (if I remember right, from 20 years ago, this explains itself a bit...several books later) and that's just one of the MANY things to hit the reader at once as the chapters are annoyingly rushed up at the end.

I was also REEEEally irritated with Chloe's overdramatic immature behavior. I have a hard time believing a 31 year old professional guy would have put up with all that but... Maybe the authors have super whiny wives and this is normal female behavior in their eyes.

The "fun" part of these books is reading about all the "high tech" technology that the authors imagined---stuff that has now been outdated a good 8 or 10 years. Chloe left college to come home after the Rapture, yet she needs "Buck the man" to set up her E-mail (capital "e" and hyphen included). The super high tech description of the inside of the futuristic plane: "every seat had its own phone, modem jack, VCR, and TV." The Presidential living quarters had "technology allowing the plane to communicate with anyone anywhere in the world." Wowie!

The world is so different now... Like when the characters are annoyed that they have to find something to do since they've arrived at the airport an hour before their flight takes off. Now we arrive 90 minutes early, at least...and have lots to do.

I may still finish these up over the course of the year, but for now I need a break. ( )