Left Behind: The Vanashings Book Review

            The book that I decided to do was one of the Left Behind series books.  It was the first book of them.  I have read 25 out of about 50 books in the series.  I just chose this one because you have to read them in order for them to make sense.

            It’s called The Vanishings, two different authors who work together to write all the different books write it.  Their names are Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.  They wrote it as a Christian book.  It’s based on the book of Revelations when Christ returns and takes all the Christians to heaven.  It could also be considered a fiction story because the characters and some of the setting is made up, except for when there is one of the judgments from God.

The main characters in the book are the four kids, Judd, Vicki, Lionel, and Ryan.  There is also a pastor who got left behind. His name is Bruce.  Judd is 16 years old who decides to take his dad’s credit card, since they had the same name, so he can run away from home.  Vicki is 14 at the time.  Her and her family live in an old, run down trailer park.  Her parents and little sister come to know Christ shortly before the disappearances, but she wants no part in it.  Lionel was 13.  His family is originally from the South but lives on the outside of Chicago.  He pretends that he knows and loves God, but he really doesn’t at all.  Ryan is only 12 years old.  Him and his best friend do everything together, except that his friend loves God and Ryan doesn’t.  The four kids get basically adopted by Bruce, who they met at a church service that was intended for him to explain to everyone what in the world was going on.

The book begins with the author introducing and describing the main characters.  Then it goes on to tell the stories of what the night was like for all the four kids when their families disappeared.  It says how all that was left of them were piles of their clothes and anything that was not flesh.  Judd was on an airplane running away when everyone disappeared.  Vicki wakes up and realizes that her whole family is gone and trailers are being burned down, smoke everywhere from people cooking and then disappearing. Lionel was sleeping in the basement along with his uncle who had been out late together the night before.  His uncle wasn’t a Christian either though, so when his parents didn’t wake him up, he didn’t start to wonder if anything was wrong.  But when the phone rang and no answered it, he went upstairs and realized that the cars were still there, but everyone was gone.  When Ryan wakes up, he gets ready to go to school and heads downstairs for breakfast.  There is a note on the table from his mom saying where she was, so he wasn’t nervous yet.  But when he turned on the TV and saw the news of the disappearances, his stomach turned upside down because his parents had told him about this.  The phone then rang and it was someone who explained everything to him.  Including that his mom had been killed in an oil tanker accident from the driver disappearing, and they had found her body.  The four kids had been left behind.

I thought that this was a good book to read because every chapter ends with and exciting part that leads to the next chapter.  The pace is good because it doesn’t go through the important parts too fast or slow, but it does spend a good amount of time on the important parts.  It had good development of characters by spreading around their starting point and where they realize that they had made the biggest mistake of their lives.  The setting of the book was good because it was very descriptive in when everyone disappeared and things were burning down, smoke was everywhere, and the craziness of it was everywhere.  I also liked it because it was based on the book of Revelations and it mentioned praying for help a lot.