The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

Based on the premise presented in the jacket cover of this book I was looking forward to an atypical story of the rapture and while I got that it was lacking an overall point to the story itself or at least one that felt worth reading. It felt like a disjointed story that was raising towards something that never came.

While characters were well-developed it felt that some were forced into the story in order to add more pages to what could have been a shorter novel, in particular the character of Aimee. As I was reading the parts with Tom were probably the ones I found myself devouring the quickest, until the last few times he appeared which felt organic for the character, but also a bit lackluster in where you wanted the overall story to end up. The rest of the characters meandered around to the point you wondered if they were going to achieve much of anything at all throughout the story. I feel like I understand that Perrotta was not trying to write a "why did the rapture happen" story, but it feels like he was trying to tell a story of people moving on after a great tragedy. I am not sure how successfully he does that here. While all the characters do indeed move on in some context it feels that many of them stay trapped in their old lives in some capacity. I enjoy a book, personally, where characters move forward or learn something over the course of the pages I read and unfortunately it does not feel like they did here.

If I am giving this thus far a negative review why did I give it three stars? It is well-written. Perrotta obviously knows how to craft a story, but knowing how to craft a story does not always make it a success. What this story lacks is a backbone or something to move it forward towards being more than just a group of people that no one cares to read about. Characters do not even intermingle in a meaningful way for the great majority of the book.

I was left with a bad taste in my mouth for huge chunks of the book, wishing that it would all be over soon. When I finally started to like it I neared the climax of the story. As it neared again the story went to a horrible place for me with the plot, characters, and overall theme of the book. I wanted so much to like this book that I randomly picked up in the bookstore on sale, but unfortunately sometimes there is a reason that a book is marked down and this was one of them. I recommend this for people that are okay reading about everyday life and the changes people can go through after a catastrophic event. I will give Perrotta another chance by reading one of his other works, such as Election or Little Children because you should never judge an author by one singular book that you have read by them but multiple works because an author may be trying a new formula or any number of things with a book, so I say if you don't like this one try another maybe one will click with you or even me in this particular case.

Until next time... Stay Optimistic!!!