Rating: 
Summary: A scary and interesting book. Thought provoking!
Review: I started with mixed feelings about this book. Since I have some real intellectual problems with Evangelical Christianity, (after being force fed Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and PTL ministries growing up; who wouldn't); I began this book very skeptically, at first the writing underwelmed me, but very soon into the book I got into the story and the book heats up and delivers numerous closely tied plots in a compelling manner. After a fantastic ride, the reader is left to digest the message. The first book, so far, has good character development, very interesting plot twists and a real heart racing pace towards the end. Supporting the book is clear and well researched biblical prophecy. The characters all have clear and distinct 'voices'; not all the men (even all the born again Christian's) sound the same and not all the women sound the same. Readers of the Left Behind series might be interested in a scientific work that closely supports the predictions of Revelations, an upcoming plague: Laurie Garrett's "Betrayal of Trust" I've overjoyed that there is an ongoing series to continue on with. I also look forward to seeing the writing improve as it has throughout the first book.
Rating:
Summary: A scary and interesting book. Thought provoking!
Review: I started with mixed feelings about this book. Since I havesome real intellectual problems with Evangelical Christianity, (after being force fed Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and PTL ministries growing up; who wouldn't); I began this book very skeptically, at first the writing underwelmed me, but very soon into the book I got into the story and the book heats up and delivers numerous closely tied plots in a compelling manner. After a fantastic ride, the reader is left to digest the message. The first book, so far, has good character development, very interesting plot twists and a real heart racing pace towards the end. Supporting the book is clear and well researched biblical prophecy. The characters all have clear and distinct 'voices'; not all the men (even all the born again Christian's) sound the same and not all the women sound the same. Readers of the Left Behind series might be interested in a scientific work that closely supports the predictions of Revelations, an upcoming plague...I've overjoyed that there is an ongoing series to continue on with. I also look forward to seeing the writing improve as it has throughout the first book.
Rating: 
Summary: An honest assessment
Review: It's amazing to see the way people react to this book. It's either the greatest thing that's ever been written or a vile piece of trash that threatens the progress of civilization itself. Please, people. This is a mediocore book. It's target audience is people who read middle-to-low brow fare like Tom Clancy and John Grisham. It definitely isn't aimed for the same class of people who read C.S. Lewis, or even Stephen King. There are plenty of mediocore books out there, and plenty of people who prefer breezy, hastily-written stuff to serious novels. Left Behind is crap, but if that's what a lot of people like, so be it. I'm more disturbed at how the authors have helped fuel the popularity of a wildly off-base interpretation of the Bible. Before anyone reads this stuff and thinks that this is really how the world is going to end, I suggest you do some real Bible study and see that things like the Pre-Trib Rapture are found NOWHERE inside its pages.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT the best Christian book out there
Review: This book and the series of sequels are pretty lame stuff. I've read about half of the first book, and I'm afraid that the only effects the series will have is: 1. Confirm in the minds of many anti-Christians that all evangelicals are low-rent, unintellectual people who follow Pat Robertson and his ilk; and 2. Make the silly obsession with the "Rapture" a priority in many churches again. That idea was finally starting to fade along with Hal Lindsey before these books came along. True, other religions have silly sectarian groups - like the Catholics and the Virgin Mary sightings. But society is much less forgiving of evangelical Christians than any other religious minority, and I'm afraid these books will just provide more fodder for those who hate us. (They actually sell offensive parodies of the Christian Fish in stores...can you imagine anyone driving around with a bumper sticker making fun of Jews or Catholics? Anyone who did that would be pulled off the side of the road and beaten to a pulp in less than half an hour. But it's okay to make fun of us, for some reason.) The authors haven't even bothered to do basic scientific research; in the opening pages they conjecture that Russia will invade Israel to steal crop fertilizer - any research into agricultural science will show that the Soviet Union has huge tracts of unused farmland in the Ukraine! Growing food is not Russia's problem. After that, the writing just gets worse. The Russians try to nuke Israel - why would they do that, when they want to steal Israel's food? It makes no sense, and the whole battle of Gog and Magog is rendered in about 3 paragraphs where the authors wipe out the Russian air force with a hail storm. (Curiously, the authors don't seem to be aware that they are putting the Battle of Armageddon at the START of the apocalypse, when the Bible has this battle at the END.) I'm a 30-year-old journalist myself, and I found the characterization of Buck Williams - the star-writer of Time magazine - to be trite and shallow. Who names a character "Buck?" Rayford Steele, the guilt-ridden flight pilot, is no better. The worst character by far is Hattie Durham, an idiot bimbo flight attendant whose only crime seems to be that she's 27 years old and attractive to middle age men. She has no depth, and the way the authors constantly bring her back just so they can ridicule her for being a silly, hysterical bimbo started to irk me around page 100. I'm hardly pro-feminist, but the depictions of Hattie became too misogynistic and mean-spirited to ignore. I'm determined to get to the end, but it's degenerating into boring tripe by the page. On the plus side, this is THE most politically incorrect best-seller ever written. If you want a book that's willing to call Judaism "wrong," criticize bad (oops - I mean, "progressive") Catholics, slam the Vatican, depict women as weaker than men, and so forth, then these books have a certain appeal. For more serious, thought-provoking fiction with a spiritual theme, I'd recommend Stephen King's The Green Mile or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. They both made me think a lot more about God than this shlock ever will.
Rating:
Summary: I agree with Tim Leider
Review: Unlike Tim Leider, one of the reviewers on this site, I did NOT walk away from the Christian faith when I was a teen - it takes more than a few hypocrits in church or pseudo-Christian flakes like Jack T. Chick to convince me that there is NOT order, design, and purpose in the universe, or to disregard a historical figure as daunting as Jesus Christ. (After all, is Jack T. Chick or Bob Jones any flakier than the people in the Philippines who nail themselves on crosses, the Hindus who hang themselves from hooks in their backs, or the Catholics who travel to Fatima and think their fillings turn gold? On the whole, fundamentalist Protestants are much more sane and rational than enthusiasts in other religions - if you don't agree with me, ask yourself who you'd rather hang out with for a day.) That said, I agree wholeheartedly with Tim's take on these books. The storyline and most of the characters are serviceably written - I'll even grant that they're better than a lot of the crap being written by contract writers for major publishers. But these books are more interested in preaching than in story-telling. I find it especially annoying that Jenkins and LaHaye are so unswerveringly arrogant to state that their idea of how the world will end is fact, not speculation. These books peddle John Nelson Darby's oddball interpretation of Revelation as the doctrinaire TRUTH of how the apocalypse will occur. The least they could have done is point out in a preface that they are painting a highly speculative portrait, and that many other valid interpretations exist, instead of including a triumphalist quote from apocalyptic crackpot John Walvoord that "the main features of this book aren't fiction." It should also be noted that Tim LaHaye really has very little to do with these books; at best, he should be mentioned in a "special thanks" section. Jenkins and Tyndale publishers are deliberately misrepresenting the authorship of these books to sell more of them.
Rating: 
Summary: This is what I was looking for!
Review: I have enjoyed this series so much that when ever the subject of christ or religion comes up I have to mention this series. The first of the series "Left Behind" was given to me by a friend with the understanding that I had to buy the rest on my own. I have since bought a number of the first book "Left Behind" to give out to friends in hope that they will be inspired to find GOD and pass on the joy of this book and the series to others. THIS A GREAT BOOK THAT IS VERY HARD TO PUT DOWN..................
Rating:
Summary: A disappointing series
Review: I read the first two books in the "Left Behind" series. I found the plot completely impractical and unbelievable for numerous reasons, but I feel a little bad saying that since I know that it was a fictional rendering of evangelical Christian eschatology. The characters in the "Left Behind" series are stiff and seemed liked the felt-back cardboard figures Sunday school teachers use on the scene boards. The Christians in this book are infallibly perfect in their thoughts and actions, while all the non-Christians are deceived, hypnotized, conspiratorial or close to becoming Christian. The authors passed no opportunity to demonize everything modern evangelical Christians despise, such as the press, the United Nations, abortion and any religion other than theirs. If these books are suppose to dramatically and effectively portray what evangelical Christians believe will soon happen on the world scene, I think the authors have let down that constituency by offering a poorly written story. I couldn't get past the second book, and I don't know if the stories got better after that.
Rating:
Summary: Religeous Mumbo Jumbo, badly written.
Review: Religeous mumbo jumbo, and badly written. Don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: Pay Attention To This!!
Review: Some may find this book to be absurd fiction, but I don't. Some of the events may seem far-fetched, but closer examination reveals that there is a purpose. For example, during the Rapture the clothing of those saved has been left behind, all rumpled. Why is this significant? I'm told by a religious scholar that in Biblical times if a person went on a journey and was not coming back, they left their unneeded clothes that way. If they WERE coming back, they left them neatly folded. Yet there are some reviewers that claim the authors didn't do enough research? Really? The critics sound to me like those who would say it's raining on a bright, sunny day. After reading the 1st book, I continued with the series and am now halfway through book 4. They're all excellent, but only to Believers and Believer-wannabe's!!
Rating:
Summary: I would recommend this book and the whole series...
Review: I read this book and the other books in the series within about a month. Although I have been involved in church activities since I was a child, I did not realize-until I read this series of books-that I really did not know what it means to be a Christian. For anyone out there struggling to make sense of what the bible means as well as feeling intimidated by its message-these fictionalized accounts, based on scripture, put the bible into a context one can apply to everyday life experiences. I know the traditional stories from the bible that most people learn-reading this book and the others has ignited a thirst, in me, for more knowledge of Christ and his teachings. The characters in the book are easy to relate to and made the message of revelation and the scriptures that I read in relation to the books more real. Whether you believe rapture will happen the way that Tim LaHaye tells the story or not-this book will at least make you think about the path your life is on.
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