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The Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker 9780812983609 Books

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The Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker 9780812983609 Books

This is a strange and sad little book. While the writing is beautiful, the author undeniably talented, and the voice of this novel very relatable, that wasn’t enough for me to really enjoy this story. For the story of a world hurtling towards doomsday, there was an odd lack of tension—it kind of felt as though death and decay were so inevitable, it was pointless to believe otherwise, and so when people died or drifted away from the main character, I didn’t feel upset, only resigned. This story lacked any low lows or high highs—it was way too even-keeled. I need more stakes, more people to care about, more to sink my teeth into, to really enjoy a book.


Tags : The Age of Miracles [Karen Thompson Walker] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People ∙ O: The Oprah Magazine ∙ Financial Times ∙ Kansas City Star ∙ BookPage ∙ Kirkus Reviews ∙ Publishers Weekly ∙ Booklist With a voice as distinctive and original as that of The Lovely Bones,Karen Thompson Walker,The Age of Miracles,Random House,0812983602

The Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker 9780812983609 Books Reviews

First, let me say that this is a beautifully written book; the prose is discriptive and conveys the slow sense of building doom. But lovely prose isn't all that a book needs to make it compelling, and, even with a unique concept to build on, the story was really a slow starter. Stick with it, though, and the momentum does increase and the characters become people to care about. The ending was perfect IMHO. Overall, an excellent book that requires some patience to appreciate its power.
4.5 stars, actually.

This book is a slow burn. Even though its about Catastrophes (both global and personal) and the surviving of them, don't look for any last minute heroics or scientific breakthroughs-- this is all about the ways we survive on a day to day basis, slowly adjusting to the terrible things around us.

Julia lives in Southern California, so she's no stranger to the ways the Earth can shake things up. But even Julia and her family aren't ready for the gradual slowing of the rotation of the Earth, and the lengthening days and nights, off-balance magnetic fields, and dying birds.

The world's governments deal with this catastrophe piecemeal, reacting with "clock time" when the days lengthen too far, giving up on the astronauts trapped in the space station, and turning off all nonessential power so that dwindling energy can be used for UV lamps to grow food.

Meanwhile, Julia is dealing with personal catastrophes of her own in the same, slow-reacting way. She's lost her best friend to Mormon retreat, her grandfather's disappeared, and her parents are falling away from each other. And there's this boy, Seth, she keeps blurting out awkward things to.

For me, the slow death of society as we know it was tied up with the emotional and social awkwardness of Julila's personality. All the catastrophes play out in a slow, sad, downward spiral. It's the small details of Julia's mother buying emergency peanut butter, and 'real timers' abandoning society for supposed Utopias in the desert, and the social perils of waiting for the school bus in the dark that layer together a delicious, slice-of-near future-dystopia life for the reader to enjoy.

It doesn't quite make the 5th star for me because the pace slowed down just a bit too much for me sometimes, and I felt like the promise of several characters (and their ultimate fates) were never quite fully fulfilled or explained.

Still, my 6th grader said she enjoyed the book as well. (Romancey bits are quite tame). For a literary-flavored near future meditation on weathering emotional and global catastrophes, this is your book.
I give a LOT of credit to author Karen Thompson Walker's imagination. Part sci-fi, part coming-of-age tale, "The Age of Miracles" is based on the (impossible) fact that the Earth's rotation is slowing. On the first day this happens, it slows by 56 minutes. By the end of the book...well, I won't spoil it.

With that premise and the bizarre effects caused by such a thing--all plant life dying, super radiation from the sun, a shifting magnetic shield--the main story is about 11-year-old Julia who is at that most awkward and painful of ages sixth grade. This is the story of Julia making friends, losing friends and falling in love as only a middle schooler can.

It is the age of miracles--when the boy does notice you, when you figure out who you really are and you learn what friendship really means. But this is no ordinary coming of age for Julia, since she is living in a time when life as we know it on Earth is irreparably changing in ways no one ever anticipated.

The writing is excellent, but even more important is that Walker made me suspend all rational, scientific thought to believe the impossible could happen--at least in this terrific story.
What an interesting way to write a story a story from the perspective of an eleven year old! She is just beginning to discover boys, get her first bra. She is not the popular kid in school but ends up developing an innocent relationship with a boy her age. Something has happened that no one can explain. Earth is slowing down in doing its spin that it finally takes 72 hours for the earth to do this. This causes major problems for growing crops and people start to develop radiation sickness. On top of that there is a syndrome many develop because of the slowing of the earths rotation. The animals die, the crops die. Mushrooms don't need as much light. People have their own greenhouses to grow some crops. Her grandfather bought gold bricks, "Because they are the safest investment in the future." Very thought provoking book!
Interesting premise but so poorly written. The number of times the author describes female characters’ braids is just lazy. Simple sentences don’t make sense. One character goes to Utah with her many siblings but later they are referred to as her cousins. Was he man in the road hit by accident or did he step in front of the car? Was he a member of a death cult or not? The book is so sloppily written and edited that none of these details are clear. I feel like this was a rough draft from a graduate school writing workshop. It’s promising but nobody cared enough to make the book good, like they just assumed we’d be so wowed by the idea that we wouldn’t notice. Are writers and editors now just assuming readers are lazy or is every book written for marketing purposes and book club appeal? I’m disappointed but whatever. Sigh.
This is a strange and sad little book. While the writing is beautiful, the author undeniably talented, and the voice of this novel very relatable, that wasn’t enough for me to really enjoy this story. For the story of a world hurtling towards doomsday, there was an odd lack of tension—it kind of felt as though death and decay were so inevitable, it was pointless to believe otherwise, and so when people died or drifted away from the main character, I didn’t feel upset, only resigned. This story lacked any low lows or high highs—it was way too even-keeled. I need more stakes, more people to care about, more to sink my teeth into, to really enjoy a book.