As the rotation of the Earth begins to slow, an eleven-year-old girl in California faces the ordinary upheavals of growing up
The days grow longer
Julia is eleven years old and living an ordinary life in a quiet California suburb when the news breaks: the rotation of the Earth has begun to slow. Days and nights lengthen, first by minutes and then by hours. Gravity shifts, birds fall from the sky, and crops begin to fail. As the world tries to adapt, Julia also faces the smaller catastrophes of being twelve: lost friendships, first love and her parents' troubled marriage.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who enjoy quiet, beautifully written literary fiction with a speculative twist, and stories about adolescence and change.
What you will get
A quiet, beautifully written coming-of-age novel in which a girl grows up while the slowing Earth transforms everyday life around her.
The Age of Miracles Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Literary Fiction · Slowing earth · Coming of age · California
Length
304 pages · ≈ 9 h
More about this book
The premise is apocalyptic, but the book is intimate. Walker tells the story through the adult Julia looking back, and the mood is elegiac rather than frantic. The world-building is subtle and haunting: the government imposes clock time while some families try to live by the sun, people sleep through bright midnights, and gardens wither under days that last too long. Each change is seen through the eyes of a thoughtful, lonely girl.
At the same time, Julia goes through the familiar losses of growing up. Her best friend drifts away, she is teased at the bus stop, and she develops a quiet crush on a skateboarding boy named Seth. Her parents' marriage strains under pressure, and her mother is frightened in ways Julia only half understands. The parallel between a world losing its rhythm and a child losing her childhood is gracefully drawn.
Readers who want scientific explanations or action will be disappointed, but those who enjoy reflective, lyrical fiction will find it lingers. It also makes an excellent book club choice, with plenty to discuss about how people respond to a slow-moving crisis. About 304 pages in the Random House paperback.
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