+1/2
Religious fantasy (and horror story, barely) about not one, but two teenage virgins, both miraculously pregnant, one with the new Messiah, the other with the Antichrist. Written in bite-size chunks and peppered with melodramatic italics, this is a book of endless beginnings, as if Patterson is forever trying to entice the reader to pick up the book rather than to put it down -- permanently. Silly and superficial on every level, the story bounces between the girls themselves, an investigator of miracles for the Vatican, and Sister Anne and Father Justin (who can't decide whether or not the Second Coming is a good time to renounce their vows and hop into bed with each other). The anticlimactic ending leaves you questioning the superiority of supernatural intelligence. Reissued in 2000 as Cradle and All, but earlier (1991) adapted as a made-for-TV film called Child of Darkness, Child of Light.
Religious fantasy (and horror story, barely) about not one, but two teenage virgins, both miraculously pregnant, one with the new Messiah, the other with the Antichrist. Written in bite-size chunks and peppered with melodramatic italics, this is a book of endless beginnings, as if Patterson is forever trying to entice the reader to pick up the book rather than to put it down -- permanently. Silly and superficial on every level, the story bounces between the girls themselves, an investigator of miracles for the Vatican, and Sister Anne and Father Justin (who can't decide whether or not the Second Coming is a good time to renounce their vows and hop into bed with each other). The anticlimactic ending leaves you questioning the superiority of supernatural intelligence. Reissued in 2000 as Cradle and All, but earlier (1991) adapted as a made-for-TV film called Child of Darkness, Child of Light.