|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Liz Jensen's apocalyptic psychological thriller rings true with terrifying possibility. Her new novel. THE RAPTURE, is set in the not so distant environmentally injured future. Unnerving in its description of a gradually globally warmed England, the paraplegic protagonist, Gabrielle Fox, is set to begin work at the Oxsmith Adolescent Secure Psychiatric hospital. It is here she meets the teenage matricidal harbinger of apocalypse, Bethany Krall. As Fox delves deeper into the psyche of electro-shocked Bethany, she begins to realize that there may be substance in the girl's paranoid predictive fantasies of imminent climatic disasters. As Bethany's warnings of cataclysmic hurricanes, earthquakes and other violent natural disasters prove to be on the money, Fox begins to unravel, becoming obsessed and invested in the child's psychic knowledge despite all her professional training. The apocalyptic story arc runs parallel to the back story of the personal life of therapist Gabrielle Fox. Confined to a wheelchair after a car accident resulting in the death of her married lover, Fox is struggling to find herself in her new circumstance, both as a professional and a woman. She has a romantic involvement with physicist, Frazer Melville, who comes to believe in Bethany's predictions as well. Jensen's prose is descriptive and captivating at times, making this novel a gripping read. She does a very good job of creating an extremely interesting, hard to love antagonist in Bethany, and it is here that I was most taken with the book. Unfortunately, the side story of Fox and Melville's relationship lacks the depth and interest of the more complex one between Bethany and her father or even Bethany and her therapist. Jensen tries to take a look at the emotional aspects of paraplegia and sexuality, but it comes off more as a Harlequin-inspired romance replete with wrongly assumed unfaithfulness and over-the-top romantic fantasy. All in all, the subject matter is timely, creepy and well written. Not a bad read on an unseasonably hot September afternoon.
Reviewed by Philippa Klein, September 2009
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
