Desecration

It's been a couple weeks...that must mean it's time to read another Left Behind book. Desecration is book 9 of 12 in the epic Christian end-times series. The Anti-Christ (Nicolae Carpathia) is now actively hunting and killing Christians and anyone else that might oppose his regime. The Tribulation Force is trying to stay alive, but has also created a Co-op so that groups of Christians can get the services and supplies they need to survive. Additionally, Chaim Rozenweig attempts to persuade Orthodox Jews to convert to Christianity.

This is the first book of the series that I am not re-reading. I thought perhaps that might make the book more interesting. Nope. This book, to me, has been the least necessary of the series so far. It takes place over just 4 days and contains few major plot events. It feels almost like half a book - a clear sign that Jenkins and LaHaye were clearly focused more on making $$$ than on actually writing anything with substance.

My biggest pet peeve with the series in general presents itself again in this book: the characters are severely under-developed. Nine books into the series, the characters should be complex people that the reader is emotionally connected to. Instead, they are flat and surprisingly easy to mix up. I know the characters by name, but when two characters have lengthy back-and-forth dialogue, it's almost impossible to tell who is talking. They don't have distinct personalities - instead the characters are type-cast into a role: the adventurous male Christian, the smart techno-whiz male Christian, the prophet male Christian, the female Christian, the undecided person, and the evil person. Those are basically the 6 characters that you come across in the book, and aside from those general roles, there's very little that distinguishes one character from another. The characters don't have much depth, either, unless they are among the "undecided." Christians are pretty darn close to "perfect Christians" and those siding with the Anti-Christ are pure evil. That's not how things work on Earth. The fact that there are no undecided main characters means that there are no characters left with any depth.

I will finish this series, if only to say that I finished the series. I am interested to see where LaHaye and Jenkins take their end-times theology, and they do provide a nice break from some of the heavier books I read.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - this one doesn't even have enough major plot events - it reads like it's half a book

25 books, 109 days...at this rate I'll read 83 books (but summer's here - time to catch up!)