Have you wondered how it would feel if more than half of the world’s population suddenly vanished? Left Behind, written by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, is a futuristic novel where two-thirds of the global population suddenly disappears. A pilot, a journalist, and a pastor come together in search for the truth behind what happened, and find out they’ve been left behind.

The book starts off inside an airplane, where pilot Rayford Steele is with his co-captain relaxing in the cockpit on a flight to London in a 747. Meanwhile, Cameron “Buck” Williams, a journalist, is conversing with the person sitting next to him on his flight. Suddenly, voices can be heard everywhere on the plane. Rayford, unaware of this, is informed by a flight attendant of the current situation, and tells the flight attendant to try to get everyone to settle down. He tries to calm the people down using the intercom, but fails. He gets word from the flight attendant again, who tells him that many people on the plane have just vanished into thin air, leaving only their clothes behind as evidence.

The remainder of the first book in the amazing 12-book series “Left Behind” is full of romance and action, as the story continues. The book has many incredible aspects, changing perspectives, killer cliffhangers, and character-building that definitely will make it impossible for you to put down once you start. As a reader, you’ll get to see the point-of-view of Rayford, Buck, and several other main characters, as the book progresses in its story. You’ll feel like you’re almost part of what’s going on in the book, detailed grammar and wording is used to give strong details to every part of the book. The end of the chapters will leave you on edge, tempting you to keep reading on by creating cliffhangers when the suspense is at its highest. Another aspect of the book is that the chain-reaction of events that will result from the first event in the book, or the disappearances, is very realistic, and provides an outlook on various reasonable consequences of having a massive amount of the world population disappear from the face of the earth: vehicles littered on the streets, boats without a helmsman in the middle of the ocean, and planes littered in airports and the passengers on board put into dangerous emergencies.

But, there are some things that could’ve been improved about the book. As this book series has some old content, some phrases that appear in the book aren’t actually used very much in our modern world, such as ancient biblical verses: “...hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17 KJV). This is written in a very old Bible translation into English, the King James’ Version; it was sponsored by King James VI and I of England and published in 1611. Also, some time could be taken to go back to the books and change the words so that people of the newer generations might have a chance to understand it. Some title changes could be done, since the first book of the Left Behind series is often to be confused with the first book in the teen version that was created by the same authors.

Left Behind is an amazing book series overall, and I strongly recommend that you read it! You won’t regret using up time to read this fascinating book.