REVIEW: Vivian Apple at the End of the World (book) by Katie Coyle

Vivian Apple at the End of the World is a combination YA road trip/post-apocalyptic story. My copy was an ARC, a very old ARC.

This review includes slight spoilers.

Review:

In this version of the United States, the evangelical Church of America and its leader, Beaton Frick, have become enormously popular. This book begins just before the date when Frick said the Rapture was supposed to happen. 

Vivian Apple isn't a Believer the way her parents are, but she doesn't know what to think when she gets home after a Rapture party and discovers both of her parents gone, with two holes in the roof above their bed. Her parents aren't the only ones who've disappeared - other Believers are gone as well. But only a small number of them, maybe 3000, leading to confusion, panic, and fear. 

At first, Vivian strives for some kind of normalcy. However, "normal" is never going to be the way it once was. The remaining Believers cling to the hope offered by Frick's prediction of a second Rapture, and there's still the issue of the end of the world, which Frick predicted would come several months after the first Rapture. With everything in chaos, Vivian teams up with her friend Harp and Peter, a guy she recently met who has connections to the Church of America, in an effort to find out the truth and hopefully reunite with her parents.

My copy of this is a 2015 ARC I picked up at a library conference years ago. Yes, shame on me for not getting around to it until now. 

I finished this a couple days ago and am still not really sure how I feel about it. I will say this: wow, did the adults feel real to my adult reader self. Not really in a good way. When you're younger you often picture adults as being the ones who know what to do when things fall apart and you, personally, are terrified. The adults in this, though, were like a lot of the adults I know, doing their best to keep it together while probably hoping for an adultier adult to take over. 

For folks like Vivian's parents, the "adultier adult" was Beaton Frick. Vivian's dad had lost his job, and during these tough times, Frick was a guy who seemed to have answers. The thing that Vivian couldn't get past was that the answers her parents were looking for didn't need to include her. When she didn't become a Believer the way they did, they left her behind emotionally...and eventually physically as well, after the Rapture. Vivian, Harp, and Peter were all teens who'd been failed by the adults in their lives - it just took Vivian longer to figure that out than it did Harp and Peter.

The whole road trip, Vivian's quest to find out what really happened during the Rapture and whether her parents were still alive - I was interested in all of that, and tense during times when Vivian, Harp, and Peter had to stop for food or gas. Most of the post-apocalyptic stories I've read have zombies or disease actively threatening the characters. Here, there were occasional disasters, but they generally weren't as direct a threat to the main characters as other people were. 

This was largely a gripping read that fell apart a bit at the end. Several of the revelations strained my suspension of disbelief. It's funny, because I'd probably have been willing to roll with something more supernatural.