The Age of Miracles (4)

I’ve been writing a lot about abandoning books. I kept getting bored in the middle and wanting to put it down and move on to something else. This book was different. I found myself constantly wanting to read it but having no real clue as to why. It was cute and interesting but there was no real reason to call it spellbinding. Except one: it was pretty. There were so moments so beautiful that you wanted to live inside the book.

Except you really didn’t. The Age of Miracles premise is that, for reasons unknown, the rotation of the earth slowed. We didn’t gain minutes to the 24-hour day, we gained a whole half-hour. And then an hour, and after a few months the days were 50-hours long. That in itself is a reason to say “Why would I read this book? That makes no sense,” scientifically, no. What it does do is create a world in which 11-year-old Julia grows up.

It’s a quiet apocalypse, (unlike World War Z, which I’ve been listening to on runs and in the car) the world slowly gaining days. At first it seems as though everything can go on as it always did, except that sometimes it’s light when you should be sleeping and sometime’s it’s light during the daytime. Some people yell to the world that the end is near, but others just accept the new normal and continue with their lives: going to school or work, gardening, arguing amongst themselves. But as the daylight hours stretch, the earth begins to change, the days grow hotter and the nights grow colder. Can humanity survive? But more importantly, can Julia navigate puberty amidst this changing world, and will she ever get to go on a date with her neighbor?

If you like young adult novels, read it. If you like somber pretty tales, read it. If you want action, plot, fierce characters or hard sci-fi than this book is not for you.

Happy reading, friends.