The Leftovers (Tom Perrotta)

At one moment, all over the world, people suddenly vanish. Cars careen driverless, dinners burn on the stove, babies stop crying between one breath and the next. Some folks immediately think it's the Rapture, but there is no rhyme or reason as to who goes and who stays: old, young, Christian, Muslim, atheist, kind, abusive. No explanation is every uncovered for the Great Departure. This book is about what happens to those who are left. Everyone is knocked off-kilter, either because of their own loved ones gone, or because of the disruption to society and to their sense of the stability of the world. A woman tries to find a life after her whole family is taken, a mother retreats from her own fully-intact family out of a sense that the world has lost something that can't be regained, a boy leaves college to follow a charismatic guru. These characters are real and their pain, and their heroism, call out to all of us. Tender and wrenching, this book draws you in and won't let go.