This entertaining and engaging book definitely grew on me as it explored each character's totally unique reaction to the mysterious "Rapturesque" disappearance of family, friends and neighbors. Book clubs should enjoy the opportunity to discuss several angles and themes conveyed in the novel, from separation and loss to love and acceptance. A great read, in my book!

I have not been this disappointed in a book in a long time. Don't bother reading it. The rapture (which is almost an afterthought) is used to set the stage for all these relationship/life issues but there is absolutely no closure on anything whatsoever and the book leaves it's self so open ended... unbelievably bad. Must be a bad time for publishers when they feel their time and money is best invested in such a bad set of terrible sentences. Invest YOUR time and money ELSEWHERE.

THE LEFTOVERS is about the lives of people in one small town after millions of people all over the world suddenly disappeared. Many people think it was "the rapture," the belief among some Christian religions that all Christian believers will rise into the sky and join Christ before the end of the world. Rather than "the rapture," others call this the "sudden departure" because the phenomenon was random, i.e., it involved non-Christians as well as Christians.

The town is full of different reactions: cults develop and some people join them. Others are full of guilt or are upset because they, too, were not taken. One woman in town lost her entire family, and she sometimes seems to be the most confused of all. Many people in the town, people like Kevin, the Mayor, and his daughter Jill, have not decided what happened, but they want to get back to their lives as they were before. They have varying degrees of success.

This is a thought-provoking book. If I lost someone like this, if they just up and disappeared, would I figure they were gone forever? Or would I keep the faith that they might come back, that they could suddenly reappear just as they suddenly disappeared?

I did not want THE LEFTOVERS to end. Even so, I've decided that it's a 4-star novel, not 5. Why?

Although its observations about the human condition, all the possible reactions to life-changing events, is well written and right on, although this book is a page turner, it didn't grab me the way 5-star novels have. It kept me expecting something more.