Elizabeth Speer

In Vivian Apple at the End of the World (rev. 1/15) Vivian, her best friend Harp, and Viv’s love interest Peter found preacher Beaton Frick’s compound in California, where they discovered that, contrary to Frick’s claims, the cultlike Church of America only staged the supposed Rapture and that Believers are either dead or being hidden somewhere—except for Viv’s mom, who is alive and well in San Francisco. Now Viv and Harp are set on bringing down the Church with this knowledge, as well as on finding Peter, who didn’t escape the compound with them. On the run as wanted criminals, the girls join an extreme militia of anti-Church revolutionaries of which Viv’s long-lost sister Winnie is a leader. Coyle furthers her searing critiques of fundamentalism; corporate power; humankind’s role in the world’s destruction by climate change, terrorism, and other disasters; and the use of violence in fighting for a cause. Nonstop twists and breathless action flirt with crossing the line into absurdity, but that’s just part of this sequel’s appeal. Fans shouldn’t hesitate to continue Viv’s quest along with her, and they’ll be satisfied with how her mission to save humanity from fear-fueled delusion plays out. Because, ultimately, faith—“among the most precious of our human abilities, our capacity for believing without seeing”