Synopsis
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.
Review
The biggest thanks to Tor Nightfire for the eARC!
Brutal, heart-wrenching, deeply honest. In the follow-up to her debut novel, CJ Leede takes a long unflinching gaze into Catholic guilt, the horrors of sheltering, and the end of the world. American Rapture belongs among the ranks of books such as King’s Pet Semetary in terms of its ability to conjure the most visceral dread and induce the deepest sense of horror. It’s the variety that makes you sick to your stomach, not for gory bloodshed (though there’s plenty of that to go around), but for the sheer amount of innate bleakness with few glimmering moments of hope to grasp onto. Sophie’s story is devastating and will bring you to your knees. Still, it is ultimately a story that needs to be told, giving words and feelings to the most intimate feelings which are typically indescribable.
Attempting to provide a synopsis sans spoilers feels like a treacherous endeavor so I’ll leave you with the basic framework. Sophie, a sixteen-year-old girl, lives in Midwest America and is devoutly Catholic. At the hands of her even more devout parents, much of the secular world is off-limits in a way that feels like extremism yet is rather common in the American landscape. To live is to sin, a lifestyle that produces a near-constant state of guilt for Sophie, a girl who does think for herself but ultimately obeys the laws of her church, school, and family. However, a virus begins to spread, the details of which Sophie is sheltered from. Equipped with little to no information or understanding of the real world, she is quickly thrust into the violent, unthinkable landscape of (what feels like) the world’s end.
From the epigraph, CJ Leede sets the tone for Sophie’s character, a girl indoctrinated by Catholicism for the entirety of her life. The very beginning of the novel depicts the depths of unawareness Sophie has for the workings of the world so far as not understanding her own body. The first few chapters feel as though Leede is tapping into the same horrific religious extremism that King implements with Carrie. There’s no room for wonder or conjecture; Sophie’s world is shaped by the understanding that to be a woman is to sin. It is up to her to prevent the sins of others (particularly men) by covering her body, her beauty, herself. It’s a heartbreaking fact of the Catholic lifestyle that feels like a dramatic flair of fiction but is sadly a very real fact. There’s instant empathy for Sophie maybe because of her naivety, maybe because of her existence which seems to be born of suffering, maybe it’s because I used to be just like her.
This novel could substantially exist within the realm of horror if you remove the apocalypse. The crisis of self, the reckoning of possible fiction and fact, and the mental purgatory Sophie endures are the deepest psychological horrors. This reckoning she experiences fuels an over-arching atmosphere of existential dread for the entirety of the novel that plunges into the deepest, darkest depths of despair. As I said, this book could thrive without the virus that turns folks into violently lustful beings, but it doesn’t. Adding much fuel to the blazing fire, this virus is any Catholic’s worst nightmare come to life, and the ways in which Sophie must learn of the onset of the pandemic are the kind of horrors that leave your muscles tense, your jaw clenched, and sweat dripping from your brow. And to think things only get worse.
Words do not exist to impart the levels of dread utilized within the confines of these pages. Yes, the strict religious ideas, censoring of information, and gory violence are more than enough, but Leede doesn’t dare stop there. Extremism, politics, and radicalization are all aspects that are fully explored in their most depraved nature throughout the course of the novel. These are frightening on their own, but Sophie’s unique lack of experience in the world elevates this fear into something else entirely. While she is shown kindness, love, and acceptance along the way, there is so much loss, so much depravity that accelerates Sophie’s character arc into a place in which she must decide the woman she wants to be. Ideas of sexuality, especially in the context of faith, have long been avoided in discussion or danced around delicately. Leede boldly, authentically enters this conversation with grace and emotional beauty that sheds light on so much of what is shoved into the dark.
“You are a precious thing, you. And you get to do whatever you want. You matter, and you have to live your life as though you matter. Now and always.”
American Rapture is a novel that will thrust you into an emotional stratosphere, experiencing anger, joy, grief, and utter terror. CJ Leede expertly gives words to complex feelings of angst, guilt, and anguish over sexuality and morality. So much of this novel succinctly details the experience of questioning faith and growing in confidence as a woman, as a human. This is a champion of a novel that will forever mark my heart and soul, a novel that may change the landscape of horror fiction for the better.
American Rapture by CJ Leede releases on October 15th from Tor Nightfire.
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