Rating: 
Summary: Jesus is Coming and Boy is He P***ed
Review: Never have the words of the above bumper sticker rung truer. For fans of the "Left Behind" series, I heartily recommend NOT reading "Glorious Appearing," because you will be sorely let down. If you want to see emotionally charged reunions and the glorious reappearances of your favorite martyred characters, you can forget it. Some don't even get to speak. Jesus comes off looking no less pompous and arrogant than Nicolae Carpathia himself, striding around in knee-deep blood and causing soldiers and horses to explode into gore with the mere sound of his voice. One has to wonder if he also "dispatching" any CHILDREN born to "unbelievers" at the "end of days." This is conveniently glossed over. The only part that WAS thrilling for me was the way in which each believer was given a personal audience with Jesus. I did cry during these passages. THIS is this Jesus I know and love. I found this totally believable. Still, the plot moves slower than the storyline on my favorite soap, and the final showdown with Satan is merely ho-hum. The last words out of the hero's mouth at the end of the book made me hurl the hard-covered joke across the room. I am a freelance writer and the cliche made me cringe. As for the upcoming "prequel and sequel," I think I'll pass.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing conclusion
Review: If you expect to find out more about favorite characters that died at earlier in the series, you will be disappointed. In the last chapter of Glorious Appearing, they show up and say "Hi" to those left behind. The first eleven books of the series showed a Christian minority attempting to convert as many non-believers as possible before it was too late - before the return of Jesus, when the uncommitted would be damned. The Day has finally come. We know that Carpathia, the Antichrist, will lose. It's not a book with a lot of suspense. Chaim spends time broadcasting in an attempt to convert as many as possible. The rest preach to the converted: "What's going to happen next?" Then three pages of text from the Bible. Christ returns, and there is a lot of blood, guts and blinded horses. Lahaye and Jenkins are better at presenting a vengeful Lord than they are at presenting the Saviour. When Christ returns, our heroes are pleased. "Jesus knows my name." Ray discovers two wives are not a problem in heaven. They eat a lot of really good food. They quote many many many pages from the Bible. If you read this as an SF action series, this will not be very appealing. If you read this as a Christian, C.S.Lewis's concluding volume in the Narnia series, The Last Battle, gives a much better idea of the joy resulting from the return of the Lord. You might also consider just getting a Bible.
Rating:
Summary: Boring ending to an exciting series.
Review: At the end of Armageddon, I was so ready for the final battle between Jesus and Satan. I cried when many of the characters were killed and I hoped that others were going to still be alive when the final acts took place. I was ready for a HUGE finish to an exciting and fascinating series. Boy was I let down!! I thought I was going to have to wait a thousand years for Jesus to finally show up. When He did, it lacked the excitment and action that I thought should be there. It should have been an elaborate production, the most exciting part of the book. I felt like I was watching grass grow. I kept asking myself if I had missed a page or something. Jesus just showed up! He sent the Antichrist and the False Prophet into a pit of fire. (That was just about how it was described in the book). Dullsville! Then in the last battle with Satan, Satan was tied up, the earth opened up, and down he went. Snore!! Even when the "Sword of His mouth" was killing all the loyalits, it lacked the finesse, the panache of other battle scenes in the previous books. What should have been the most exciting part of the 12 books, left me hoping that if I were "Left Behind" the real ending would be more climatic! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz
Rating:
Summary: Not a great ending to the series
Review: As a true fan of the Left Behind series, I have anxiously awaited "Glorious Appearing," making sure I was able to get one the minute it came out. Needless to say, the anticipation was greater than the realization. What should have been heralded with triumph and victory was instead a great letdown. I truly was disappointed in this book. Given that "Glorious Appearing" is the last one in the series, it's a sad end cap to what I felt was truly an inspiring and entertaining piece of work.
Rating:
Summary: What happened to the Characters?
Review: Well, I read the first 11 books very rapidly, in succession. While I was extremely disappointed by the 9th grade level of writing, I did find the characters and the storyline interesting enough to keep reading and waited eagerly for the last book. What a disappointment! Please..do NOT buy this book! Get it from the library and find out who died at the end of book 11. Then, before reading anything more, read your Bible for every quoted word about Jesus because all of it (and more!) is in the book.. over and over and over again. And just assume that everyone gets back together again as promised and the bad guys get their just reward. That's about it! The characters, which had been outlined in such detail, are ignored by the end of the book. I don't know about the rest of you fellow readers, but I sure wanted to know more about what Chloe and Irene, Hattie and Albie (and the rest) were doing while they were waiting to come back. I would have liked to have had them discuss it with the folks who survived. I read eagerly, wading through "Jesue Bible Quotes" to get to where everyone would be reunited again. I wasted my time. Add to that, the ridiculous picking out timelines from scriptures and applying them to the Millenium. Please....spare me. This book is a waste of good trees.
Rating:
Summary: Oh God! When will it end?
Review: No, not when will the end of the world come, but the end of this series. Put succinctly, reading the Left Behind series is like reading books which intentionally throw out all rules of hermeneutics and exegesis. This series is the epitome of eisegesis: reading into the Bible what one wants it to say. This series is the epitome of literalizing clear apocalyptic Scriptures. I won't run on about the fact that they ignore every single time reference in Scripture concerning "the last things" (eschatology is not the study of end-times, but the study of last things; there is a huge difference). I could never write what all needs to be said here to expose this series, but for starters, read "Last Days Madness." If you can't figure it out from reading this book, there is nothing else that can be said to open the eyes of the mind. I find it agonizing to think of the millions and millions of people who have been deceived by Lahaye, Jenkins, Van Impe, Lindsay, Darby, Scofield, and others. All this hoopla over a doctrine that didn't exist until 1830, the result of a woman speaking in tongues. Truly, it doesn't take much to convince the weakminded when sensationalism rather than truth is the goal.
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I read the series to understand another facet of the evangelical mindset. One must accept the premise that these events have a truth value in order to enjoy them--the imagination must be engaged through a preexisting set of radical beliefs. Not only is the series poorly written, this final episode is the most disappointing. As literature, its has no value. As ideology, its extremist fundementalism at its worst. I was raised in an evangelical family, and have abondoned the idol of Jesus made by human hands for a more inclusive loving God. The Jesus of this book, like Mel Gibson's Jesus and George Bush's Jesus, is a golden calf. Its constructed out of arrogence and violence. If you want to know why frreedom of speech is dangerous, its because of the inherent hate that this kind of writing spreads. If Armegeddon comes, it will be because this view of reality (the expectation portrayed in book #12) collides with the expectation of suicide bombers seeking Paradise. The difference between the two is negligible. I'm glad I read this book. It made me see that Armageddon is indeed around the corner. If people keep buying books and ideas like this instead of investing their time and energy into acquiring analytic skills and a breadth of literary understanding, we're all doomed to a culture of ignorance and hate.
Rating:
Summary: Get the real interpretation
Review: If you want to find out the real interpretation of Revelations then go to a Catholic Church and ask a priest. Don't be misled by prophecies of private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20). Let the one true Church instituted by Jesus Christ himself guide you. God bless.
Rating:
Summary: Some books are better left unwritten
Review: I read the first of the Left Behind books based on the recommendation of a friend. It was an interesting take on what the idea of "The Rapture" might be like if it were to happen. As the subsequent books have been written, Lahaye and Jenkins have shown their increasing quest for profit and book sales is in opposing proportion to their writing abilities. Is it my imagination, or have the margins been getting larger along with the font size and the space between lines. I always used this trick when writing a paper to meet the page requirements when I was weak on the subject matter. Suffice it to say that, their idea of what "The Glorious Appearing" might be like is very disturbing. I would like to picture Jesus as someone who does not cause people to explode with "Stephen King-like" graphic description with His sacred word. I am a life-long Catholic and view this book as very prejudiced. The entire series seems to indicate that if you are not a born again Christian, you will not be saved. I would, again, like to believe that the Jesus that we honor is more loving and non-discriminatory. It is my experience that, those who have been "saved", truly needed saving from addiction, divorce and crime. Something that many "born again" Christians seem to share in their backgrounds. I salute Jenkins and Lahaye for making enough money on this series of sophomoric books to last until the end-times.
Rating: 
Summary: good book, but . . .
Review: I've read all of the books in this series, and enjoyed them all greatly. I had a couple of problems with this one, though. First, the ending of the previous book and the beginning of this one contradict each other. Could the authors not remember how they ended the last book? That's what it felt like. Also, the first third of the book moved along pretty well, then got very slow, to the point that I got impatient with it, and skipped ahead to around the final third where Jesus appears and faces off with the antichrist. The one thing I can't fault any of these books with is that they've helped me take a look at what I believe in and where my life is with all of that.
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