Customer Reviews

The End Is Now

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have four words for you: This book is AMAZING. I don't even know how to describe it to you. I read a review of this book claiming that it was "hilarious", which it certainly is not. Yes, there were some funny moments, but they were 'Smile Inwardly' funny moments, not laugh out loud moments. It's a satire technically I suppose, but I think it would be better described as The Left Behind books for the rest of us. You know, the same thrilling end times story without being forced to endure having the disturbing worldview of premillennial dispensationalists like Tim LaHaye shoved down your throat. To put it in simpler terms, this book is the Left Behind series minus the misogyny, intolerance, glorification of violence, and best of all minus the descriptions of our Lord as a bloodthirsty killer. Ahh I'm going off on a tangent here, but you get what I'm saying, don't you?

The book is an edge of your seat thriller. I couldn't even pick it up during the day time because once I started reading I could. not. put. it. down. One night after having devoured a third of the book in one sitting, I had to throw it down on the table and run away so I wouldn't stay up all night reading. Some of the descriptions of the events in the story were so vivid and powerful that I got goosebumps.

One more important thing: I don't think you need to be a Christian to love this book. The book is definitely written from a Theistic viewpoint, but it doesn't preach or force any particular view. I don't know if Rob Stennett actually believes in the Rapture or not. All I know is that his writing didn't insist either way, and that's a pretty remarkable accomplishment.

So, in conclusion, read this book. Better yet, buy 20 copies and pass them on to everyone who you love so that they can be so blessed as well! Then come back and find me and we'll form a Rob Stennett fan club. What are you waiting for?? Go!!

"The End Is Now" begins with an excellent set-up: a teen-aged Kansas boy has what he believes is an encounter with God while taking a shortcut through a cornfield. The boy, his family, and eventually others must then decide what, if anything, to do about this. Unfortunately, the entire book does not maintain the quality of the opening.

Stennett is a good, professional writer. He knows how to keep us interested, how to pace his story, how to enter into the heads of different characters. His style is bright and clever. He does an especially good job of maintaining uncertainty about what exactly the boy experienced and whether it was truly divine.

Things move along well until the final third of the book. At that point, I felt that his characters began to be jerked hither and yon without any inner logic. As a consequence, the climax seemed forced. And I'm still not sure what the point was.

All that being said, I enjoyed Stennett's writing enough to want to give his work another try. He has a new book coming out soon -- "Homemade Haunting" -- that I want to at least sample when it becomes available.

Little towns across America boast all kinds of odd museums. There's a Mustard Museum in Wisconsin, the Dole Salad Museum in New York, and the Antique Sewing Machine Museum in Arlington, Texas. Up until recently few outside of Goodland, Kansas had ever heard of its one lasting attraction, a Rapture Museum. But, when eleven year old Will Henderson has a mystical encounter while lost in a corn field the subject of Goodland's museum becomes something more than a source of idle conversation. It seems Will has been given a vision of three prophecies that will precede the rapture. Before you confuse this as yet another knock- off of the Left Behind series there is one thing you need to know. As best anyone can tell, after talking with Will, this will be Goodland's own private rapture. Or as one local puts it - "A test market for the real thing."

If you are the type that is easily offended by satire this isn't the book for you. In The End is Now, Bob Stennet leaves no stone unturned in shining the light of his sharp prose on the silliness Christians often descend into when they get sidetracked from the real issues of life and eternity. With each seemingly fulfilled prophecy the town teeters closer to the edge of social and religious insanity. Long-time friends are pitted against each other while more enterprising souls quickly figure an angle to profit off the Lord's soon return to Goodland. And caught in the middle of the madness is the Henderson family: Will, the son who thinks he saw a face talking to him in the corn fields; Jeff, the father whose been playing games with God for most of his life; Amy, a mom who is burnt out on being the perfect Christian mother; and Emily, who really doesn't want the rapture to happen until she is elected Home Coming Queen.

Are the odd happenings in this normally sleepy town the fulfillment of a young boy's warnings or are they just coincidence? How can a people who have proclaimed themselves longing for the rapture for generations become so divided to the point of anarchy? Does God always appear in a white robe and with a long beard? Okay, the last one is answered by Will. In his young mind, the face he saw had a bead so it must be God or an angel of the Lord. If you are expecting The End is Now to answer these questions or to give you deep spiritual insight into eschatology you will be sorely disappointed. But if you want to see how Christians must look from the outside looking in this one is well worth your time.

Loaded with pop-culture references, honest questions only a child could ask, and more than its share of unanswered questions, this story will leave you hoping the end isn't now. At least not until we get our act together a little better and start acting like grown-up believers.

When you read about religious believers pondering whether to cut down branches in the cemetery in order to spare the rising dead any nasty head wounds as they are raptured to meet their Lord, you know that you have a different, non-"Left Behind" kind of rapture story. And, it turns out, a better one.

Rob Stennett's "The End is Now" is refreshing because it doesn't take the rapture so seriously. Or better yet, because Stennett knows precisely how serious rapture eschatology really is, he sees that to truly wrestle with its social and theological implications, one needs a bit of satirical distance. We find it at the very beginning: the Almighty wants to scope out just how the rapture will work when he finally pulls the curtain, so he sets up a test run in Goodland, Kansas. Three signs are given to young Will Henderson that will serve as warning and preparation.

It's not quite complete to call the novel a satire: it's at least a detective-mystery-satirical-rapture thriller where the pages can't stop turning themselves. The tension builds and builds, but the book always refuses to tread where you think it's headed.

The hilarious idea of a test market rapture allows the story to explore some perennial ideas in philosophy and religion. For example, there is a delightful ambiguity that marks the entire work: Has God revealed Himself to Will Henderson, or has Will simply imagined his prophetic message? Stennett gives hints towards both readings, and indeed, it's not clear if "The End is Now" thinks that these are genuinely exclusive categories. More broadly, are the apocalyptic signs in Goodland acts of God, or simply Nature doing what she does? Stennett's not telling.

I think he's just as interested in why we're so ready to avow and fanatically gulp down religion, or equally, to spit it out, and that's what makes the novel so good. The book is a kickin' apocalyptic thriller about how God uses the rapture in Goodland, but even more poignantly, it wrestles with how God is used by us.

In The End Is Now, a young boy gets a vision telling him to warn his small town of three signs that would herald the Rapture (the sudden disappearance of faithful Christians)...but seemingly only affecting their community. Most of the story describes the responses of an entirely believable family with a disappointed-by-life Dad, a trying-to-be-spiritual Mom, a teen daughter trying to find her own identity, and a boy prophet who, most of the time, is more boy than prophet. I enjoyed the light, sometimes humorous and always sympathetic touch with which the author treated his characters. The only time I rolled my eyes a bit was the overwrought description of the "luxurious" life of a small town mayor. A limo? Really?

After the first half of the book makes an effort not to be preachy, it got a little thick towards the end. If you can deal with that, you might enjoy this thought-provoking book that asks: what would YOU do if someone said the end was nigh?

p.s. If you're looking for a hilarious comic take on this same topic, check out Robert Kroese's Mercury Falls.

I loved this book, could not put it down. It seems like many people have criticized the book because it described Christianity in a way they didn't like, but I don't think it was presented in an unfavorable light. My advice is don't read it if you're close minded and rigid about your religion, it's satire after all.

This is a quirky read. Part morality tale cast with a bunch of crazy slapstick characters, mixed with some Biblical truth, a little Biblical fiction, and a whole lot of paranoia froth into a book that is quickly read but is not going to appeal to all.

Rob Stennett charmingly breaks a biggie fiction rule with amusing results. Conferences, books, lectures have focused on tight story crafting that cuts backstory into tiny, palatable pieces. Stennett serves up backstory in a smorgasbord of offerings from character motivation and past experiences, to random thoughts and bizarre beliefs.

If you can't do a fiction menu that varies and does not offer just meat and potatoes, you'll probably not enjoy this novel. But, if you go for quirk, snark and variety and the subject interests you, give it a shot.

. . . to get to one of the worst endings I've ever read. I liked the first third, started getting uneasy about half-way through, and watched it fall to pieces by the end. There are quite a few horrid spots as this book ends--but the worst? An elementary school is destroyed, an entire town starts rioting, the police actually implement a complete curfew, and somehow the homecoming dance still goes on. Please! And the teen protagonist is able to fill the dance with a few phone calls? At 11 p.m. on the night before the rapture is supposed to happen? Dumb, just dumb. The suspension of disbelief is important when reading fiction, but this book goes far too far in ridiculous situations like this.

This novel is full of jabs at religous types, non-religious types, law enforcement types, family types. And the jabs are scattered and without rhyme or reason--one moment, the author is cutting down believers in the rapture, and the next he's implying that they're the ones who have true faith and who live that faith. The characters at times are incredibly insightful, and at other times incredibly dense--stupid, even. And how many references to pop culture and movies can one novel hold without getting truly annoying?

But the ending is one of the worst cop-outs I've ever seen, one that does no justice at all to the rest of the novel. It's easily one of the most horribly inept endings that I've ever read, one that shows no respect at all to the topic, to the characters, to the readers, or to the novel itself. From the helicopter spotlight that's mistaken for God to the inane epilogue that tries to wrap things up with NO resolution, my last few minutes with this book were annoying and infuriating.

I would never recommend this to anyone. This review is longer than it should be, but I'm kind of ticked that I just spent time reading up to such a stupid ending.

As one who's always found the rapture-apocalypse obsession pretty useless, I was excited to read fiction that took it on from a different perspective. Stennett did not disappoint, whisking me along on a breathless narrative that combined keen satire and raw humanity. Never losing pace, the adventure shifts between multiple character's perspectives in a way that's both tasteful and profound. The prose is often irreverent (in a good way), but the characters themselves were dimensional and believable. They stray into entertaining anecdotes that amuse, pull the heartstrings, and enhance the story's themes - usually all at once. Stennett's ability to do that, if nothing else, makes this a great read. Unexpected twists round out this page turner, and I couldn't put it down.

They've marketed this novel as Christian Fiction, and while the subject matter obviously concerns the Christian rapture belief, Stennett's story presents it in such a way that it is wonderfully human. The supernatural elements it depicts work because uncertainty abounds, allowing you to think for yourself. Illuminating pitfalls of belief, intra-family politics, and the ambiguity of truth and life itself, the book is a very entertaining and insightful look at one slice of humanity that anyone - Christian or atheist, agnostic or seeker - can enjoy. I would know. I've been all of the above.

In short: read this book!

I got The End is Now as a free download, so I think the least I owe the author is a review.

Long story short, I loved it. It is reminiscent of some of Stephen King's best works, or maybe Frank Peretti's Visitation, which start with an average town, find a way to isolate it, and then have something incredible happen. The results not only define the book's characters, but also speak to the human condition.

This book will especially resonate with people who grew up in church; though I think anyone will enjoy it. It is witty, insightful--sometimes irreverent--but also just plain awesome. It is a character driven work (as the chapter titles clearly reinforce) which could've been boring or slow. However, I didn't find that to be the case at all. The extensive backstory is interesting and spot on in so many places. It reads fast. And the ending is perfect!

The End is Now is well worth paying for.