The Age of Miracles

294 pages

English language

Published Dec. 30, 2012

ISBN:: 978-0-8129-8360-9
Goodreads:: 12401556

(1 review)

The Age of Miracles is the debut novel by the American writer Karen Thompson Walker. It was published in June 2012 by Random House in the United States and Simon & Schuster in the United Kingdom. The book chronicles the fictional phenomenon of "slowing", in which one Earth day begins to stretch out and take longer and longer to complete. The novel received positive reviews and publishing deals totaling £1.12 million (£1.41 million today), and has been translated into a number of languages. The book was nominated as part of the Waterstones 11 literary award in 2012.

1 edition

Thom reviewed The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Review of 'The Age of Miracles' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This debut novel is about a coming of age and an apocalyptic event. I confess it was the former that drew me to this book, fitting recent reads such as the Death of Grass. The narrator doesn't know the science of what happened, which fits well with not telling the reader. I enjoyed the coming-of-age portions, which were written with a good perspective.

This wasn't a five-star book for me. The author uses frequent foreshadowing which at first seemed to build tension but later became annoying. The ending of the book seems very rushed - we jump from middle school to a brief report of what has happened in the last several years. Huge events (daily earthquakes?) are almost completely ignored. I am not sure if it was meant to be a metaphor, but the fairly extreme reaction between two groups of people (clock time versus real time) seemed too …

This debut novel is about a coming of age and an apocalyptic event. I confess it was the former that drew me to this book, fitting recent reads such as the Death of Grass. The narrator doesn't know the science of what happened, which fits well with not telling the reader. I enjoyed the coming-of-age portions, which were written with a good perspective.

This wasn't a five-star book for me. The author uses frequent foreshadowing which at first seemed to build tension but later became annoying. The ending of the book seems very rushed - we jump from middle school to a brief report of what has happened in the last several years. Huge events (daily earthquakes?) are almost completely ignored. I am not sure if it was meant to be a metaphor, but the fairly extreme reaction between two groups of people (clock time versus real time) seemed too strong, especially for somewhat liberal San Diego and California.

I wouldn't mind discussing this with a group who might point out what I didn't get, but I think it would be more likely to go the other way. 3 stars, and that might be rounding up.