Audiobook Review: Rapture (Fallen #4) by Lauren Kate

Once again I have enjoyed another audio book downloaded through my public library using the Overdrive app.  Now, I haven't been exercising like I'm supposed to be, so I pretty much listened to this whole book in my car, with a bit on the plane rides to and from New Orleans a couple weeks ago.  While I still have issues with the narrator, by this time I'm pretty used to her voice and how she does the different characters.   All in all, I feel this was a pretty great conclusion to the whole series, even though there is now going to be a book #5.  If you haven't read the books up until this point, then I'm sorry, this will have spoilers for those books.  You can go back and read any of those reviews here:  Fallen, Torment, and Passion.  Now, on for my review of this book. (Excuse any incorrect character name spellings as I didn't read, but listened, so don't know for sure some of the spellings).

As we ended the last book with a huge possible end of the world situation going to be caused by Lucifer himself, that is exactly where we pick up again.  Turns out that there are some relics that Daniel had studied that should help them figure out where the angels' fall from heaven happened.  And that is what they must do, they must find those relics and get to the site of the fall in order to stop Lucifer from grabbing all the angels and taking them straight from the fall to the current day.  Because if they did that, all of history would be rewritten, and Luce and Daniel would never have the chance to get together, even with their curse.  So the story takes place as the angels we know and love, Daniel, Cam, Roland, Arriane, Annabelle, Molly, and Gabby, as well as Luce and her Nephilim friends Miles and Shelby, set off in search of the relics, but they come up against the Scales and the Outcasts.  They will find other obstacles, places that the relics were originally may have been moved, and other villains from the past, like Miss Sophia.  They are able to use the memories that Luce is now retrieving more easily thanks to her trips through the announcers into her past lives in the last book.  They will also find some new allies, relatives of Miss Sophia, as well as those that were once considered their enemies.  And we learn so much more about Luce, about how she and Daniel actually first met, and just why Lucifer went to so much trouble as Bill in the book before this one.

While I had an inkling about the reason for Lucifer's interference, it was nice to find the way it happened was done perfectly.  Many parts that we learned about heaven and before the fall totally reminded me of the Supernatural tv series that I love so much.  And not to offend anyone, but the part where angels were created by God for the sole purpose of adoring him, well that just really hits me in my not sure about what I think about God.  Who creates something just for that sole purpose?  It is similar to adopting a kid or buying a pet with the only thought that they will be there for you, not that you are there for them?  I don't know, that just sticks in my head.  And my complaints about the audiobook have to do with the narrator.  Once again I understand she is lowering her voice for the male characters, but often the way she did Daniel made him sound like a really dumb guy.  Just the way she did the voice, not necessarily his lines or anything specifically from the book. 

Overall, a great series, a great ending to the series as I said before.  I love the way the author ended it, I won't give that away, but I feel like it should be a very satisfactory ending and way to make sure that we know just how true the love between Daniel and Luce is.   I know that there is a #5, but it is going to be Cam's story, and that is something I'm eager to read.  Oh, on the end of the audio, there was an interview with the author, and it is funny that Cam is modeled on her husband, and they way she talks about that.  Now, I'm still waiting for the movie of the first book, and need to go do the research to find out when it will be coming to a theater near me!

Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo

Okay, first, I want to let everyone know that my opinions on this may not be yours.  And I appreciate that, I am the first person to say everyone should be allowed to have and express their own opinion.  I just hope that if you are offended in any way by what I say, you will choose not to criticize me or tell me I'm wrong.  I definitely don't mind hearing what you think if you've read this book though, even if your opinion is completely opposite of mine!  I'm only choosing to review this on my blog, as opposed to Goodreads, because I feel that my followers are all readers who feel the same as I do about opinions, and I know there are some people on Goodreads who don't value or respect others' opinions.  So here goes.
I first picked this book up one night last month when I was standing bored on a very slow night at the bookstore where I work.  I was working at the cash register, where you're kind of stuck there when you work, especially when you're the only one working.  We're not really supposed to read, but it was a week or so after I'd put my dog Sydney to sleep, and it was hard for me to not have something to occupy my mind without getting all teary eyed.  I picked this up, and was sucked right in. 
The story is very easy to read, in that it's told very straight forward, and in an every day person way.  It is told by Todd Burpo, who is a pastor, but how he learned this was from his 4 year old son named Colton.  When Colton was almost 4, he had been to the hospital for a burst appendix.  The story of how that all happened is scary in itself, of how the doctors kept saying there was nothing they could do, until they got him somewhere a different doctor realized what had happened.  Scary to think it had burst, and then for a while he'd felt better, so his family had thought it was just a flu bug and gone on vacation.  Todd tells us how he had gone through so many health scares right before all this just for himself, and how Colton being this sick had been the last straw.  How he'd felt like Paster Job.  He'd railed at God when he was alone in the chapel at the church.  Then calmed himself down and gone out to be there for his family.  A year later, after all had been over and seemed to be fine, Colton spoke up with a very unusual statement.  He remembered the hospital where he'd been because that was where the angels had sung to him.  And he'd sat on Jesus's lap, and he'd seen relatives. 
Now, you'd be thinking, as many naysayers on Goodreads said in their reviews, of course Colton had heard all this stuff somewhere, his dad was a preacher!  But some of the stuff was very remote, and it would be interesting to know how he'd heard it.  And what was kind of the kicker, and really hard for me to read after recent tragedies in my own family, was that he met a girl who claimed to be his sister.  And it turns out his parents had a girl that was miscarried before he was born.  Something he would not have known about. 
Okay, I don't know if this convinces me about heaven, or worshiping God, which is currently the issue I have.  But it does give hope.  I currently don't attend church, or know what or how I believe.  I grew up at a Lutheran school from 1st through 8th grade.  Every other weekend I was either there, or with my dad and stepmom at a Catholic church.  So my mind is pretty much trained that there is a god.  I just have felt myself a lot like Job, everything going wrong, seeming like my life is pointless.  I even tried going back to church two years ago, hoping to be inspired or something.  At first, I fell in love with my brother's church, and if I do go back, I'll go back there, but nothing came about, no feeling of peacefullness, nothing that helped me.  So I'm still in a state of wondering.  I think this is a good book to read though.  I liked what Colton had to say.  I liked that it even seemed like God/Jesus had a bit of a sense of a humor, that is what I'm kind of looking for.  I liked how it seemed heaven would be.  Some people who didn't like it commented on how the "wings" was ridiculous.  But what do we know?  If there is a heaven, we don't know. 
I guess I just have to say this was an interesting book that made me think, and I think could give hope to my brother and sister in law in their loss.  I will probably pass it on to them at some point.
I'd love to hear any thoughts you have if you've read this.