In this dystopian novel, we follow a young girl (12) named Julia in the months after the earth’s rotation begins to slow down. I keep seeing it referred to as a “coming of age story,” although I’m not convinced Julia made the transformation from child to adult during the course of the story. For me it was more about how life moved on for her small circle of family and neighbors in the midst of a worldwide crisis.
I have mixed feelings about this story. On the one hand, it was a quick read (it was short, which I suppose is an advantage of reading YA), and I found both character and voice compelling. On the other hand, not much happened. We don’t even get the answer to the biggest question: Why is this happening? It seemed incredible, even unbelievable, to me that no one knew why the earth’s rotation was slowing down. Mixed in with my feelings of doubt was this sort of lack of panic going on. Julia seemed peripherally aware of some people panicking, but mostly life seemed to move on even as a day stretched from 24 to 72 hours. She still went to school. Her parents still went to work. It seemed to me that this is a situation that would very quickly cause the deaths of millions of people, if for no other reason than due to the panic. Maybe that was going on just outside her circle, but I didn’t get a sense of it.
In Julia’s narrow world life more or less moved on. She went to school. She lost her friends (not sure why that happened), her family was in trouble, and there was a boy. Some people moved away. Some tried to get off the 24-hour clock and move to “real time” with the rising and setting of the sun.
I will say this much: It had all the makings of a haunting story.
If you like dystopian stories, you may enjoy this. If you’re not drawn to end-of-the-world scenarios, this isn’t going to be the story to change your mind.
Rating: 3/5
Title: The Age of Miracles
Author: Karen Thompson Walker
ISBN: 0812983602
Published June 26, 2012