Rating: 
Summary: Simply irresistible
Review: I took this book from a friend and read it over the 4th of July weekend. It's an excellent novel. I found it impossible to put down. It reads very fast, it has a compelling plot and characters, and the punch line is nothing less than stunning. This story stretches the boundaries of spirituality with a very honest and realistic look at the nature of mankind today--chilling, scary, believable, dead on accurate. They should make a movie out of this, it's very visual and hard hitting.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent thriller
Review: If you like novels that challenge your mind and your standards, you'll find this intriguing. It kept me in knots to the end and left me questioning many things I have taken for granted my whole life. This is a book you should read with a friend so you have someone to discuss it with--it will inevitably lead to some thought-provoking disucssions. Great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Topic of "second freshness", but intriguing .. to a point
Review: There have been countless books written about coming of Statan's son, but very few - about a Messiah and His Second coming, this is a book on the latter. Although, taking into consideration it was written in 1997, Millennium bruhaha is past already, and that's why all the hysteria of last December days of 1999 does not seem so actual any more (and it diminishes the effect of the book).There is no use to retell the plot (it is precisely described in reviews above and below), which loses it breath-taking pace around page 120 when Jeza's origin is discovered and further on the only riddle of the book is whether she comes from Christ or Antichrist. Some scenes are moving and intense and grip the reader (meeting with American president, meeting with the Pope), make him think and guess on her true mission. Although when her journey starts to repeat Christ's (flight from Israel to Egypt, return to Israel on a mule through Golden Gates etc) and Easter is nearing, her destiny becomes predictable. However, as I liked the Messiah quite a lot (contrary to one reviewer, she is quite believable and her "feminist" message complies with her whole mission very well), and can forgive the predictability of her end and ressurection, but the happy-end for other main heroes was unbelievable (Jon Feldman falling from a flying helicopter and staying alive, Jeza's "sister" rising from a 6-year coma, all bad powerful gyus overthrown and captured in the last moment, people handing in their weapons all over the world) and diminished solemn and touching effect of the whole book. If you write a book on Messiah and end of the world, don't finish it with "Armageddon"-style ending... The main character is not a person to be remembered (I even can't recall how his looks are described in the book), and it seems that all he was able to understand after Jeza's coming and leaving, that he "loved Anke (his lover) with his heart, but Jeza - with his mind". Very valuable experience! As to the "burning religeous topics" - I don 't find this book shoking or surprising, rather it makes me sad - that Church has acquired immense wealth during passing centuries, together with imbibing all human sins with it, and it will not part from its Universal power so easily - it is not a secret; if Son (or Daughter) of God would visit us now, we'd turn it into a TV show and a guessing game - no wonder... However, the book does set some hidden wheels in your soul in motion, even if it is not worth a second reading...
Rating:
Summary: A quality novel
Review: Simply put, this is an excellent novel that is as thought provoking as it is suspenseful and outrageous. I found myself unable to put this one down (literally, I took it to a play and actually read it during intermission, it's that compelling!) I've got all my friends reading it now so I'll have someone to discuss it with. This is the kind of book you feel you've just got to talk to someone about. Needless to say, I thoroughly loved it. Worth a second read--and maybe a third!
Rating:
Summary: interesting and moving
Review: this book is a page turner. very interesting and moving.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: I can see where some people might find this book upsetting, since it pokes some irreverent fun at contemporary religion. At the same time, however, it is hard to ignore the fact that the novel is dead-on accurate in how it portrays the reality of contemporary society and its relationship to religion. More important, the novel blends all this into a first-rate mystery that broaches some of the most challenging and disturbing themes of our time--namely, what our we doing to ourselves following our present course of action. Change is needed, and the mad descent into panic that this novel portrays has a strong ring of reality to it. For a read that will keep you engrossed, make you sweat with fear and challenge your mind as well, this novel is uncommonly good.
Rating:
Summary: Iconoclastic
Review: Naturally a book like this is going to upset some readers--particularly fundamentalist Christians and those who take their faith blindly and without question. But obviously the open minded people who appreciate this novel are more upset with the unvrivaled inhumanity and ungodliness of Irish Catholics fighting Irish Protestants, Muslims fighting Jews, Sunnis fighting Shiites, etc. and Mankind's hypocritical general history of religion vs. religion. More blood on this planet has been spilled in the name of religion than for any other reason, and this novel brilliantly presents that case along with the compelling answer to this ages-old shame. The truth may hurt, but the way this novel blends that truth into an edge-of-the-seat thriller is nothing short of mind boggling. I found this one of the most thrilling and original reads in years and highly, highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: This was a real page-turner for me- so good that when I was finished, I made all my friends and family read it. Mixing science, history, politics and religion there's a little bit of everything in this book and it's very well written. This book has always stood out as one of the most engaging and memorable novels I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Provocative
Review: I can't recall the last time I read anything that surprised me as much as this book did. This story deals with very controversial subject matter. The approach is unique, from the perspective of a sensitive-but-cynical TV journalist who is immersed in the Story of all Stories. Without question, this book is provocative. It is irreverent, disrespectful, satirical in some parts, and it steps on just about every religious toe imaginable. But what can't be ignored are the salient points the book makes, and the intelligent, compelling and unexpected ways in which they're made. There is much here that will provoke reflection and discussion. Anyone who's ever thought they had all the answers (or just SOME of the answers) about religion, God, the bible, would do well to read this novel. But this book is not so much a spiritual mystery as it is a suspense thriller. Even if you have no religous bent one way or the other, you will find this an interesting page turner. It's a revealing and fascinating look at one of the world/s most fearsome and unfathomable questions.
Rating: 
Summary: A Waste of Time & Money
Review: About the most lame-brained thriller in years. The characterizations and dialogue are below the comic book level. In fact, the writing overall is as elementary as it gets. Bombast and overlength don't hold any interest for me and the only part of the book that works is borrowed from other, much better novels. The story is as ludicrous as the fact that this thing was ever actually published. A total waste as a novel, but some accurate criticism of the Church.
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