"The Age of Miracles" by Karen Thompson Walker

Entertainment Weekly made this book sound poignant and intriguing, so I got it from the library.  They were right, but it seems I'm not at all in the mood for poignant these days.  Remember how This Side of Paradise depressed me?  So did The Age of Miracles.  Not as much, but it still planted a big cloud of gloom over my head for the few days it took me to read it.  If that sounds like a non-recommendation, it's not -- this book is original and lovely, it just was not at all what I wanted (or needed) to be reading right now.  Back before it took a lot of prayer, coffee, and chocolate to get me through the day in a cheerful fashion, I bet I'd have liked this book a lot more.

The Age of Miracles begins on the day that middle-schooler Julia and her parents learn, along with the rest of the world, that the earth's rotation is slowing down.  Known as The Slowing, this phenomenon at first doesn't seem to change things much -- days are a few minutes longer, at first.  Before long, though, those extra minutes are extra hours.  The government decides to stick with a twenty-four hour day, so that everyone can be on the same page about when things like school and work should happen.  Only not everyone likes that idea -- the "real timers" follow the sun's schedule instead, staying awake during the daylight and sleeping in the dark, even though those days stretch longer and longer. 

In the midst of all the global upheaval, Julia is also experiencing the ordinary upheaval of adolescence.  She likes a boy.  She doesn't understand her parents.  She wants to need to wear a bra.  She loses her best friend.  She tries to connect with her grandfather.  Life may be slowing down, but for her it is also speeding up.

Walker juggles the balance between global disruption and personal angst pretty deftly.  Neither one ever seems to be more important than the other.  And her concept of what would happen to the world feels very real -- animals and plants can't adapt, humans struggle to find solutions to problems like energy and food sources, and people argue and come to blows over changes they can't control.  In fact, the thing that gloomed me out is how real it felt -- I would sometimes look out my window and remind myself that the world wasn't actually slowing down and my life wasn't being disarranged, that was just in the novel.

If you like end-of-the-world-is-near books, or coming-of-age books, you'd probably dig this.  Me, I'm heading for the solace of yet another cheerful murder mystery.  I have three small children -- there's plenty of angst and strife in my real life, and I don't need more, even if it is fictional.

Particularly Good Bits:

Carlotta's long gray hair swung near her waist, a ghost, I suspected, of its younger and sexier self.

(Originally posted on Hamlette's Soliloquy on Aug. 20, 2012.)