The Age of Miracles

looks like an intresting book

I am not normally a fan of apocalyptic settings (with a few exceptions), but since this was a bookclub read with a very promising and unique premise, I put my prejudices aside and spent a few lazy Sunday hours reading this novel – I don’t mind to be proven wrong in my set ideas about certain genres. However, despite Julia’s fresh voice and engaging narrative, I cannot say that I particularly liked the journey the book took me on. The rather depressing doomsday atmosphere aside, the story didn’t work for me on several levels. Exploring a catastrophic event through the eyes of an eleven-year-old girl raised more questions than it attempted to answer, which made for a very unsatisfying conclusion. Furthermore, the fact that Julia is an only child, rather passive and a bit of a loner further narrows the perspective of the event, making it almost banal in parts of the novel, which I found extremely frustrating. Faced with a threat to humankind as a whole, I would expect more dramatic responses than, for example, the hoarding of food and arguments over which time to keep in the face of lengthening daylight and darkness hours. It’s like worrying about missing your favourite soapie in the midst of a category 5 cyclone! I have experienced a major natural disaster in my lifetime, and expected to read about some of the intense emotions experienced when confronted with a threat to life from forces out of our control – the fear, the panic, the anger and only much later the resignation Walker describes. For me, this did not come across in the novel, which was somewhat disappointing and very unsatisfying.

 This tells of the impact that a significant event has on the life of a young girl, her family, friends and where she lives. It assumes that the rotation of the earth slows, such that each day is no longer 24 hours long, but is getting longer and longer.It's an interesting twist on the usual coming of age tale - coming of age in the midst of a calamity. And there are elements that are most thought provoking. However, there is a fundamental lack of scientific understanding at the heart of this story. In the first instance, the slowing isn't noticed until 56 minutes have been added to the night. Not to the day, just the night. This is announced on the news and suddenly this change is noticeable to everyone and over both days and nights. Then there are the physical effects of this - gravity seems to have increased. Even I know that gravity has little to do with the rotation of the earth. The far more likely effect of the slowing - a change in the magnetic field of the earth - doesn't kick in until mid way through the book. And I found it impossible to suspend disbelief enough to ignore the highly questionable scientific basis for the book. Seeing Julia is still at school, I'll mark this D - should have done some homework first.