American Rapture by C. J. Leede
January 23, 2025 6:10 PM - Subscribe

A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust.

From the author of Maeve Fly, comes the story of Sophie, a sheltered and traumatized 17 year old trying to survive a rapidly spreading virus that causes the infected to become violent rapists. Because of her parents' religious devotion, Sophie isn't allowed to read the newspaper, have a cellphone, or access a computer. Even what she takes out from the library is restricted. As a result, she knows almost nothing about the flu, NARS-Cov, that has been ravaging the Northeast and even less about the new mutation: HPSV AKA Sylvia.

But as more and more people in her hometown in Wisconsin are getting sick, even sheltered Sophie knows that something is wrong.

Content Warnings: Animal death, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Child death, Homophobia. Those are just the major ones-if I listed them all, it would be a very long paragraph but you can see them all here. It's very gory and graphic.
posted by miss-lapin (1 comment total)
 
I really enjoyed Maeve Fly and so when my friend found out that Leede and Chuck Tingle were doing readings together promote their new novels (American Rapture and Bury Your Gays respectively) she went and got a copy of Rapture signed for me. She gave it to me for my birthday. I started it two days ago, and I'm over 1/2 way done.

It's interesting to read this after reading Camp Damascus as they have similar beginning premises-both novels are written from the perspective of teenage girls raised in oppressively religious parents who are threatened by their sexual awakening, curiosity, and individuality. But where they diverge is Leede is very comfortable with taboo hence the long list of content warnings. Unfortunately what this means is I desperately want to talk to people about this book, but even among horror fans a lot of readers opt out because of the animal/pet death.
posted by miss-lapin at 8:00 AM on January 24


« Older Gilmore Girls: Forgiveness and...   |  Severance: Goodbye, Mrs. Selvi... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments