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Dubray Review

Julia is a normal twelve year-old girl: she loves her family, goes to school, has a best friend, and develops a crush on a local boy. But when the earth starts to slow in its rotation around the sun, life becomes complicated – for Julia and for all of humankind. The days and nights get longer and people start to behave in ways they never have before. Some turn violent while others collapse unexpectedly. There are strange electrical storms, birds falling from the sky, and scientists are unable to offer any explanation why. During this turmoil, Julia discovers that growing up is tougher than it appears to be and that the ones you love are sometimes the ones who hurt you the most. This brilliant debut novel is an apocalyptic coming-of-age story for adults by an author well worth watching.

- Edwina Boyce, Bray

Description

WHAT IF our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours until day becomes night and night becomes day? 'It is never what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophies are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown...' What if our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours, until day becomes night and night becomes 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 an eleven-year-old girl, grappling with emotional changes in her own life..? One morning, Julia and her parents wake up in their suburban home in California to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth is noticeably slowing. The enormity of this is almost beyond comprehension. And yet, even if the world is, in fact, coming to an end, as some assert, day-to-day life must go on. Julia, facing the loneliness and despair of an awkward adolescence, witnesses the impact of this phenomenon on the world, on the community, on her family and on herself.

Reviews

Advance praise for "The Age of Miracles
""[A] gripping debut . . . Thompson's Julia is the perfect narrator. . . . While the apocalypse looms large--has in fact already arrived--the narrative remains fiercely grounded in the surreal and horrifying day-to-day and the personal decisions that persist even though no one knows what to do. A triumph of vision, language, and terrifying momentum, the story also feels eerily plausible, as if the problems we've been worrying about all along pale in comparison to what might actually bring our end."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)
"In Walker's stunning debut, a young California girl coming of age in a dystopian near future confronts the inevitability of change on the most personal level as life on earth withers ... She goes through the trials and joys of first love. She begins to see cracks in her parents' marriage and must navigate the currents of loyalty and moral uncertainty. She faces sickness and death of loved ones. ... Julia's life is shaped by what happens in the larger world, but it is the only life she knows, and Walker captures each moment, intimate and universal, with magical precision. Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving."--"Kirkus Reviews" (starred review)
"What a remarkable and beautifully wrought novel. In its depiction of a world at once utterly like and unlike our own, "The Age of Miracles" is so convincingly unsettling that it just might make you stockpile emergency supplies of batteries and bottled water. It also--thank goodness--provides great solace with its wisdom, its compassion, and the elegance of its storytelling."--Curtis Sittenfeld, author of "Prep"
"'Miracles' indeed. Karen Thompson Walker's debut novel is a stunner from the first page--an end-of-the-world, coming-of-age tale of quiet majesty. I loved this novel and can't wait to see what this remarkable writer will do next."--Justin Cronin, author of "The Passage"
"Is the end near? In Karen Thomps