Rapture Season: From a Glacier We Watch the World Burn

by Eric Micha Holmes, Lili Taylor (Narrator), Kerry Warren (Narrator)

Joyce receives a disturbing e-mail from her daughter Mia’s ex-boyfriend, and embarks on a cross-country road trip in order to save Mia from a cult. Twelve years later, Mia reflects on her indoctrination and her eventual reintegration to society in an effort to understand her identity as a biracial woman.

Rapture Season explores the relationship between mother and daughter, radical ideology and family, and the differences between searching for meaning and manipulation. Told in a true crime format with a mixture of fictionalized found audio, interviews, and present narratives, this play is a thoughtfully crafted psychological puzzle.

Genres: Audiobook, Fiction

Audiobook

Published December 2, 2021

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The performance was engrossing, but the ending was odd! The "thoughtfully crafted psychological puzzle" just left me puzzled. Not sure I really got it…

[Laura Peden · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was weird.

[Angela M. Artis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was it just me ? Am I the only one who thought this audiobook and/or book was EXTREMELY WEIRD ? The ending left me TOTALLY CONFUSED !!!

[Ken · Rating 1 out of 5]

It kept me interested until the end. The end felt a little like “I’m not really sure how to end this”. The performance was great. The story decent. The ending spoils the rest for me.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved lily in this

[Wendie Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This audiobook was really well done. The story was really different and very unique. The ending sort of fell short for me, but overall it was a great listen.

[Shantel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the narration but a bit confused about the ending. 🥴

[Nicole SaBell-Stoltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this and found it to be a great short story. I could relate to both mother and daughter and found myself caught up in their drama which had just enough tension to really keep a reader engaged.

[Sabrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super brief but a fun easy read.

[Sarah Flynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I listened to this audio because it was free and I was bored doing my rehab exercises.

The story is about young woman who gets caught up in a cult, and her mother rescues her.

I just found the story to be very incomplete and unsatisfying. I didn't like any of the characters, but even so I would have liked them to be consistent. They weren't.

Furthermore I found the details of the story confusing and sloppily laid out. Like, why was this guy still allowed on a college campus? How did he have access to the land to build his commune? What hold did he have over the girls? How was the mom still paying the bills to Vassar and the daughter was out in the wilderness and no one noticed anything, even upon inquiry? What happened in the end? What happened to all the other girls?

Finally, I actually did not like the sound effects. I just found them distracting.

Would not recommend.

[Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
I don't know what to say exactly, except this grabbed me and held me.
The relationships between mothers and daughters are already so fraught with love and confusion and longing, and then for a mother of a biracial daughter who has been swept up by a cult leader?!
There is so much to feel in this short story that I will probably listen to it again. And the narration is SPOT ON.

[Megan (ReadingRover) · Rating 1 out of 5]

This seemed like it could have been so much better. It was disjointed and hard to follow with the way it would jump back and forth between mother and daughter’s perspective sentence by sentence. I didn’t find the characters or the cult aspect interesting either. Usually cult stuff will draw me right in but this had nothing going for it. Total let down. 1 star.

[Sylvie Rochon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story about a mother finding out her daughter joined a cult.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful.

I hated all the characters. They were terribly written - the mom especially. The mom was more frantic and irritated than actually worried about her daughter. Half the time it sounded like she didn't even like her daughter.

The plot wasn't believable. Cult leaders are supposed to be charismatic. This guy was not. He also got people "under his spell" almost instantaneously and with only a paragraph or two spewing his ideas (ideas that were so blah blah blah that I didn't even understand what point he was trying to make). The man also has apparently been fired from multiple schools and is a terrible teacher and yet...somehow he keeps getting hired? And at one point the mother takes a gun into Canada with little more than a couple questions at the border? Ridiculous. The ending also felt messy and unclear.

The audio mixing wasnt great either. Almost all the man's parts were hard to hear because of the "distance" they tried to imply with the "audio tapes". Sections where it would flip between mom and daughter mid sentence or between sentences got confusing and were hard to follow.

I also have no idea what accent the man was trying to have. He's supposed to be from South America? Or he's half German? His origins were up for debate...so I guess that's why his accent is too? Either way, it threw me off.

All in all, an awful audiobook/audio play. I put most of the blame on the writer.

[Kathryn Laughton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific theatrical piece. I was so excited to discover it. I did not know it was a play, but kept thinking that it sounded more like a play than a novel. I was able to really see it as a theatre piece in my mind. And as for the “weird” ending others have noticed, I have to say this is what theatre does- it has a different sensibility to the literary world that may appear less narrative driven and more emotionally driven. I totally got it even though I was not 100% sure of the actual events happening as the ending unfolded. The sense of terror in the mother’s final face off with the wild animal, battling the recorded voice of the cult leader that had crept inside her own head, was literal but also metaphoric in terms of rescuing her daughter from his clutches. Enjoyed every second of this piece and will look for more plays that Audible have created. This is my jam.

[Aya Blackwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great in a really good way. I listened to this on audible and normally I don't like the layering of narrators over each other but this was done perfectly and it really adds to the story. I think the same dramatic effect and pacing couldn't be reached just reading it. It's well written and engaging and I will be searching out more from this author.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, this is one that has to be listened to in order to get the full effect. I was enthralled by the narrators and the interconnectedness of what was happening. It may well be I listen to this again.

[Ashlee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Between reading this book and writing this review I moved countries so this review is a little vague (book 3 of 9)

2 stars because it’s been 2 months and all I remember about this book is that there was some compelling mother-daughter drama but the ending made absolutely zero sense.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0-3.5 stars

[Oscar Lilley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept was interesting but failed in its delivery.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am completely befuddled with the ending.

[Jennifer Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting little read, oh how easy to get caught up what’s a cult!!
How did into guess, not what I thought at all.

[LeeAnn Valano · Rating 3 out of 5]

The performance and everything up till the end was pretty good. The end was pretty abrupt and weird.

[Jessica George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook. Really good story, great voice actors. I enjoyed that it was from 2 perspectives and at one point they spoke together. Nicely done.

[Jamie Hairston · Rating 3 out of 5]

What the hell was this!?

[Thalia Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⬇️

[Dav Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story of a mom facing her daughter being wrapped into a cult. Interesting idea and the slim cast is expertly used.

[Mia Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

One word for this book… weird