The Age of Miracles (edition 2012)

I liked this, but it was a little anticlimactic. It's about the world spinning slower each day until it will eventually stop told from the point of view of a girl who lives in the suburbs. ( )

Interesting subject, but I kept waiting for more, I thought she'd address the 'after', since she used so often the expressions 'back then', 'in those days'... I suppose I wanted more of a sci-fi book, with reasons for what was happening.
And at times it felt so deeply american, so foreign: why was it only the 'nutters' that had solar energy? It's California, longer days, the issue of power should have been the least of their worries, for my european brain. ( )

You can read my review here:
http://abshepherdsreinventedreader.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-age-of-miracles-by-karen-thompson.html# ( )

It was a good drama about a girl growing up in a world that is no longer turning. It was believable and well-written. ( )

The premise of this book was interesting and I read it quickly. However, the writing was abstract, flowery and distracting. The lack of concrete images was hard for me to get through. Also, the point of view was inconsistent throughout. The change between the narrator knowing the situation and knowing nothing makes it hard to follow and I never felt like I believed her. I viewed it all from afar. A lot of what I didn't like about this book, though, is based in the fact that this is a largely YA book and might appeal to someone who is familiar with the YA genre. ( )

What if our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours, until day became night and night became day? What effect would this slowing have on the world? On the birds in the sky, the whales in the sea, the astronauts in space, and on a family and a young girl, who is already coping with the normal disasters of everyday life?

One seemingly ordinary Saturday morning in a California suburb, Julia and her parents wake to discover that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. No one knows why, no one knows how to deal with it. The enormity of this change is almost beyond comprehension.

Told through Julia’s eyes, this beautiful and original novel shows how easily life can fragment, within a family, within a community, and on a far wider plane when the rhythm of life as we know it is knocked so unexpectedly out of kilter. Luminous, haunting, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles is a stunning debut.

Loving dystopian novels at the moment, they make me really appreciate the life I am living!

This gradual, melancholy death of the earth is truly haunting but the main focus of the book a coming of age/rites of passage story filled with the loneliness and angst of the pre-teen that just happens to be taking place at the end of the world.So beautifully written I found myself constantly re reading passages and noting down quotes every few page.

The science is a bit dodgy and contrived but stick with it if only for the beauty of such bitter-sweet prose....

“When we finally understood what was happening that morning, Hannah and I rushed outside to check the sky for evidence. But the sky was just the sky--an average, cloudless, blue. The sun shone unchanged. A familiar breeze was blowing from the direction of the sea, and the air smelled the way it always did back then, like cut grass and honeysuckle and chlorine. The eucalyptus trees were fluttering like sea anemones in the wind, and my mother's jug of sun tea looked nearly dark enough to drink.”

“How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible?”
( )

This novel amazed my heart and my soul. I was astounded by the transition each character went through during this earth shattering experience. For any reader who seeks to look deep inside the human soul, I would highly recommend this book. ( )

This book has a very interesting premise: the earth slows down and it has dramatic effects on the length of the day, gravity and people's behavior. The story is told through 11 year old Julia who is struggling with the typical middle school dramas of friendships, crushes and bullies. I would have liked to know more about "the slowing" (although the author suggests that scientists really never figured it out) but the book is primarily about how Julia and her family go through life for the next year or so. Julia is an excellent narrator and keeps the story moving very well. This is not the most uplifting novel but I read it in one sitting and would definitely recommend it. Like a number of other reviewers (although it doesn't bother me as much as some of them), this book could easily be shelved in the YA fiction section. I would definitely read another book from this author.

While I like the premise -- what would happen if the earth's rotation started slowing and through our 24 hour cycle out of wack -- I found the story rather lack-lustre. The narrator is a sixth grader, but she has the apathetic attitude of a fifteen year old. Nothing really gets emotional or intellectual attention, characters are put into boxes and are more or less dismissed, and the science is given a cursory glance.

Are people really more impulsive and risky in daylight? Would society really ostracize real-timers? Would the natural world react as described? While I read, I found I couldn't fully believe the author's depiction of this dystopia, certainly not the way I do when I read other dystopias, like those of [a:Margaret Atwood|3472|Margaret Atwood|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1282859073p2/3472.jpg] or [a:Cormac McCarthy|4178|Cormac McCarthy|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1302752071p2/4178.jpg].

Put this book on a YA shelf; it can create some interesting discussion, but it's not a book for literary adults. ( )

A very, very good story, well-told and gives you a lot to think about in regards to how our lives are tied to the natural day/night cycles. ( )

First of all, I haven't cried while reading a book in a long time, I don't even know if I could tell you the last time I cried while reading.

What I loved about this book was how it was so much about coming of age but so much about what would happen if something like the earth slowing actually happened. So many dystopian novels or post-apocalyptic novels paint a grim picture of life. "The Age of Miracles" is told from the perspective of a young girl who is just learning to navigate the world as young woman when disaster strikes. And society tries to remain the same, and the government doesn't dissolve, and somehow, things remain the same yet not the same.

I really appreciated that in this book people still fall in love, people still go to school and work. And, I think, the last line of the book is one of my favorite (though one of the saddest) endings I've ever read.

READ IT NOW! ( )

This is one story that I didn't want to end. The premise is that one day the slowing starts, which means that the 24 hour day keeps getting longer and longer. Daylight and darkness don't coincide in regular time. People start dividing into clock-time and real-time followers. But throughout it all a sweet, yet sad, story is told by a young woman looking back to when it all began. ( )

A coming-of-age tale set against a natural disaster unlike any previously known. Juila is eleven and an only child, living with her parents in Southern California. As the story begins, it has been discovered that the earth's rotation has begun to slow. It's almost not noticeable at first, but then "the slowing" starts to effect gravity, the weather and plant life.

The Age of Miracles is a fine debut, that would also be perfect for younger readers. There is sadness, death, and a deep sense of loneliness for Julia; but there is also the feelings of first love, and the understanding of adult complexities that come very quickly at this age. Karen Thompson Walker obviously learned quite a bit, working as an editor. The book moves at a brisk pace, and the reader may even get a little choked up by the end. ( )

A bit uneven in terms of the narrator (age 11 vs. ability and such) but lots of interesting things. I would expect that our fragmented society would collapse into chaos much more quickly and deeply than depicted here, but again, some interesting things. Well cast for narrator Emily Janice Card. Solid ending line, though the ending did feel rushed a bit. Nice outtro music, too.

The author said something. Then she said it again, slightly differently. The point was reworded and stated again. There were paragraphs in which all of the sentences came to the same mundane point. The sentences grew shorter. She was still repeating herself. End with a note of intrigue.

It felt like the author came up with some sort of template about what chapters and the paragraphs and sentences contained therein should look like, and then used that template to write this book.

The disequilibrating event (the Earth's rotation slowing and the days getting longer) felt original, and I like the idea of a disaster being used as background for a bildungsroman about a girl and her family. But the writing was dull and the story, as a whole, failed to come to a point. ( )

I think I'm basically just a big sucker for third person plural. ( )

Holy crap. What a creepy and page-turney coming-of-age book. I wish I could read it again (for the first time)! ( )

[No spoilers in first three paragraphs]

via NetGalley

So many post-apocalyptic or dystopian novels begin after the end; that is, the major catastrophe that changed people's way of life, whether natural or man-made, has already occurred. In The Age of Miracles, however, the characters live through the change as it happens, which makes it a different kind of book. Additionally, although the narrator, Julia, is an eleven-year-old for most of the book, she is telling the story looking back from an older age, so it is told in the past, not present, tense; the narrator drops crumbs now and then about a future the reader isn't yet sure of (though we are fairly certain that Julia is still alive).

More than any other novel, The Age of Miracles reminded me of Alan Weisman's nonfiction thought experiment, The World Without Us, which describes what would happen to the planet if all the humans disappeared. In this case, however, the humans stay while the Earth changes in ways that are making life difficult to sustain. For Julia, this is quite a time to come of age, and Karen Thompson Walker describes her world in a way that is beautiful but not showy.

Readers interested in character and theme will likely enjoy this; readers who are more interested in the sci-fi aspect should tailor their expectations. [STOP HERE if you don't want to know anything about the ending!]

The reason for "the slowing" is not discovered or explained; only its effects are managed (but not solved). All we know at the end is that Julia is still alive, but as she says, "the past is long, and the future is short." Her and Seth's final message - the last three words of the book - must serve as the conclusion.


EarlyWord: http://www.earlyword.com/2012/06/19/michiko-really-likes-the-age-of-miracles/?ut... Spreading the Word June 22 2012&utm_content=EarlyWord Spreading the Word June 22 2012 CID_b6217b61e025f7cea44494cd3030f3d1&utm_source=Email marketing software&utm_term=THE AGE OF MIRACLES

Goodreads author interview:
Quotes:

It">http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/791.Karen_Thompson_Walker?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=snapshot

Quotes:

It seems to me now that the slowing triggered certain other changes too, less visible at first but deeper. It disrupted certain subtler trajectories: the tracks of friendships, for example, the paths toward and away from love. (31)

From then on, we all had a little more time to decide what NOT to do. And who knows how fast a second-guess can travel? Who has ever measured the exact speed of regret? (36)

Back then the future was whatever they imagined - and they never imagined this. But doesn't every previous era feel like fiction once it's gone? (72)

Everything was coming apart. It was a rough crossing, the one from childhood to the next life. As with any other harsh journey, not everything survived. (74)

One thing that strikes me when I recall that period of time is how rapidly we adjusted. What had been familiar once became less and less so...But I guess every bygone era takes on a shade of myth. (82)

It was like a haunting: two dimensions of time occupying a single space. (86)

That's the way it happened sometimes - people just disappeared. (86)

We were like wanderers in a desert, blessed with a rare downpour but unable to store the rain. (88)

And if...every event took a little longer to transpire, then were the consequences of those events also less swift? (129)

Still the slowing went on and on. The days stretched. One by one, the minutes poured in - and even a trickle, as we have come to understand, can eventually add up to a flood. (133)

And this one fact seemed to point to other facts and others still: Love frays and humans fail, time passes, eras end. (193)

We should look ahead, she says, to the time that's left. But the past is long, and the future is short. (212) ( )

This is one of those books I liked so much I couldn't put it down. I read it in a day and now I want to read it again.

It's a coming-of-age story set in a time when the Earth is slowing down and days are longer than 24 hours. Julia's in middle school and the author did a great job of capturing how rough that time period is for a girl. One second you have a best friend, the next she's best friends with a girl you hated or didn't know existed...and you're left all alone. That happened to me once, it was not fun.

(More thoughts on my blog...like what does aneċe mean? Life:Merging)

I can't wait to buy this book so I can share it with everyone I know! ( )

Having read this after Susan Beth Pfeffer's moving novel, Life As We Knew It, whose major tropes are borrowed by The Age Of Miracles, I cannot understand why there was so much hype surrounding this book. I imagine that readers of mainstream fiction (as opposed to those who have read a lot of SF & dystopian fiction) were drawn to its use of a grand apocalyptic theme to frame a simple human tale about who people really are, and how they behave, when day-to-day survival is not guaranteed. Like Pfeffer's book, it is also a coming-of-age novel told from the perspective of a young girl. But while I found Pfeffer's novel to be a bittersweet and painfully realistic portrayal of a family after a globally-crippling cosmological anomaly, The Age of Miracles was sadly lackluster.

I found the idea of the feud between those who lived the sun vs. those who lived by 24-hr clock-time to be cute, but very contrived and silly (especially as the days grew longer). Why would anyone care if their neighbors were gardening while they, themselves were struggling to sleep in darkly-draped rooms? Does Alaska have such factions? I also had a difficult time identifying with the main character, and had to remind myself that she apparently didn't start writing things down until she was older, even though she talks about events that started to occur when she was eleven. I would get distracted by how worldly and mature this "11-year-old" was! It would have worked better for me if she had started her journaling at age eleven, so that we could have experienced her actual maturation over the years.

Those who aren't normally drawn to stories with SF elements may enjoy this, and hopefully it will peak their interest in exploring the many wonderful offerings in the genre. ( )

An apocalypse book set in San Diego? Yes please. ( )

The idea of our days getting longer is one that never would have occurred to me. It was interesting to read to read about the what if's of this situation and see how the author chose to play them out.

I felt so hopeless while reading though. Not sure I would recommend to just anyone even though I enjoyed it and couldn't put it down. Started this Friday and finished by noon on Saturday. ( )

This was so achingly beautiful. I feel like I need to take a step back and just breathe after finishing this. I love how the author uses growing up changing and intertwines it with this slowing of the Earth... It was quietly creepy because it felt real enough to happen in my lifetime, yet it was so seamlessly woven into adolescence and the uncertainty of that; seriously no words. I love when books can end and leave you slightly unsettled, and this one didn't disappoint. Love love love. ( )

This book was good, but it is definitely a YA book that doesn't cross over as well as some. I guess I have been reading too many vampire/zombie dystopian books to fully appreciate the simpler story in The Age of Miracles. It is not The Hunger Games either, but the author does a nice job of telling a very original story. The vast majority of the book takes place in the 12th year of the narrator, Julia. This is when the slowing of the days/nights begins. People and relationships change in response, and Julia spends a lonely year dealing with the results of these. She finally finds a true friend and potential soul-mate, but even this happiness is doomed. It seems like the story just spins out after that, and a fast-forward to what ends up being the present brings a rushed feeling to the ending. I think the target audience (YA) would really like the story, but I wouldn't recommend it as much for more mature or adventurous readers. ( )

I'd say this book was decent. It started out so slow for me that I almost gave up, but managed to finish it, once it picked up in the middle.

The premise is interesting: 20-something Julia tells the story of 11 year old Julia, and life during "the slowing", a phenomenon that occurs on Earth and causes time to slow down, making days and nights alternatively longer.

This book should have been better than it was; my main problem with it is that nothing really happens. I found it very anti-climactic. Time gets all screwed up, it affects Earth in ways you'd imagine (and maybe some you wouldn't; the science is a bit loose in some places), and people have a hard time dealing with it. Aside from one thing that surprised me (which I won't spoil here), it was fairly predictable, and at times, rather dull.

Given the choice, I'd probably give it 2 1/2 stars. It was okay, but I really wouldn't recommend it, and wouldn't read it again. ( )