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.
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.
OK, so I finished this last night. I have to say I was expecting a bit more out of it. It was very workmanlike in its narration, carrying Sophie out of darkness into light via much more darkness. Yes, there are some very poignant scenes (and the Barghest burn is hard to read) but overall I thought the weird Catholic upbringing shift right into sexual exploration and seeing the (real) light was a bit too slick. Also, it seems that society in this particular plague ridden world moves very quickly; how did those knights get their red robes & organized so fast?
posted by chavenet at 12:25 PM on February 22
posted by chavenet at 12:25 PM on February 22
I suspected while reading that the knights are actually behind the plague because they want to bring about the second coming. That may be because earlier in the year I read Hell Followed With Us, a YA lgbtqia+ horror novel with that as its premise. However, because the narrative is bound to Sophie, it stays true to her pov. Since most of the other characters are fellow traumatized teenagers, I can see why this wouldn't be something any of them consider. They are too busy attempting to cope with what is happening to really figure out WHY it's happening.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:02 PM on February 22
posted by miss-lapin at 1:02 PM on February 22
I finished this last weekend, blazing through it in about three days. It's a little slow to get going, and at first I found myself thinking, "Oh! It's Crossed: The YA Novel!" not totally unkindly, because the first 100 pages or so read a lot like a book by Suzanne Collins, which wasn't what I expected but, you know, is fine. Once Sophie gets out of her comfort zone (such as it is, I guess) and into the larger world, though, the book became very gripping for me and I became really invested in seeing where it would go.
The thing that's most interesting to me about the way Leede handles Sophie's voice is that we always are respectfully in her POV -- I never felt like I was meant to think I was smarter or more worldly than Sophie -- but we're also able to see around the limits of her perspective to get a sense of what's really happening in the world, and with the people she befriends, whose lives sometimes have a context that, to Sophie, is completely unknowable. But to us, it's not. So, seeing Maro and Cleo through her eyes, we see perhaps more than Sophie does, which is a neat trick.
Leede's prose is simple, direct and for the most part not terribly remarkable, but she's a good storyteller. I'd just finished reading Creation Lake before I read this, and that book is stylistically stunning in a way that this one, um, isn't. But Creation Lake (which is shorter!) took me two weeks to read; few chapters ended in a way where I felt I HAD to know what came next. Leede has that gift, and that's a pretty big deal, really.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:33 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]
The thing that's most interesting to me about the way Leede handles Sophie's voice is that we always are respectfully in her POV -- I never felt like I was meant to think I was smarter or more worldly than Sophie -- but we're also able to see around the limits of her perspective to get a sense of what's really happening in the world, and with the people she befriends, whose lives sometimes have a context that, to Sophie, is completely unknowable. But to us, it's not. So, seeing Maro and Cleo through her eyes, we see perhaps more than Sophie does, which is a neat trick.
Leede's prose is simple, direct and for the most part not terribly remarkable, but she's a good storyteller. I'd just finished reading Creation Lake before I read this, and that book is stylistically stunning in a way that this one, um, isn't. But Creation Lake (which is shorter!) took me two weeks to read; few chapters ended in a way where I felt I HAD to know what came next. Leede has that gift, and that's a pretty big deal, really.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:33 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]
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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