The Rapture

ok comrades, i am way behind on book reviews, so here we go. a couple of weeks ago, i finished the rapture by liz jensen. this book was excellent, if not a little frightening, given how very very possible the storyline is. this book takes place in the not so distant future, where global warming has become even more unbearable than it already is. the main character is gabrielle, a french-canadian (?) parapelegic art-therapist who is starting her first job since her accident at a high security psychiatric facility for dangerous juveniles. her most interesting and dangerous client is bethany, who killed her mother with a screwdriver when she was eight (i think, its been a few weeks since i read the book) and has been in lockdown ever since. at the time of our reading, bethany is now sixteen (i think) and still refuses to talk about the incident with her mother. she has however taken a liking to electroschock therapy, as she feels that the volts enable her to correctly predict natural disasters. of course no one really believes her, but gabrielle starts to notice she does have an uncanny knack for being right. on top of all this, there is a huge group of people who are part of the "faith wave" who are hard core evangelical right-wing Christians who sit around waiting for the rapture all the time. in a somewhat predictable but necessary twist, bethany's father (who refuses to visit her in the facility) is a major minister of the faith wave. anyway, long story short, bethany ends up predicting this massive, massive natural disaster that could knock out most of europe and probably more. (the story takes place in england). eventually gabrielle starts believing in bethany's predictions and then she and her newly acquired physicist boyfriend are trying to make people believe that the disaster is coming, and of course the faith wave people think that they are going to be raptured before hand.
this book is well written and exciting, but as i said, a little frightening. (not to mention i was distracted by all sorts of negative thoughts like, would dave still love me if i was paraplegic?) the only negative thing i have to say about it, is the story is written in the first person, from gabrielle's point of view, and she drags out telling you stuff in an effort to surprise you, but its so friggin obvious from the very beginning. (example: the fact that she is in a wheelchair). also there is this really irritating section of the book where she thinks that the physicist is cheating on her and he so obviously isnt and it is so distracting, because all you can think about is how stupid she is not to see that and have trouble getting through the plot-related stuff. anyway, i suppose i can forgive this because the bonus of having a first person narrative is that the narrator is imperfect and flawed and only sees things the way she wants to. or whatever. anyway, if you want a thought provoking but disturbing read, this is the way to go.