A Book That Should be Left Behind

By Jasper M

Left Behind is a fundamentalist Evangelical propaganda book written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, and is one of 16 books of a series. The book and its continuing series focus on the Rapture and the Book of Revelations in the Bible, which is the end of the world. It focuses on a journalist named Buck in a year where the Middle East is at peace, and Israel has healing soil that can change the world. That is, until the world starts falling apart and people disappear into thin air without warning, as God's wrath is being unleashed.

The narrative is laughably bad. I genuinely laughed at some of the more "serious" sections because of how clunky and straight forward the writing is. The people do not behave like normal human beings and it is meant to be taken seriously. Had this book been written as a commentary on fundamentalist belief that the Rapture would literally happen, it would have been more enjoyable. This book, and its series, are meant to be taken as a warning of the future. The character building, narrative, and dialogue is all awkward and shoved in. It all feels artificial and you do not feel sucked into the story. You are very aware of reading a book, and a bad book at that.

I do not recommend this book to anyone unless they are a fundamentalist Evangelical as far as the plot goes. It is more of a religious propaganda than a book. Even if you enjoy reading bad books, it is not worth almost 500 pages of your time because of how boring the characters are and how dry the dialogue is. Overall, I would recommend people to never read this book based on the stinted and boring writing narrative.

Left Behind, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Alive Communications, 1995, 469 pages