Helpful Score: 5
THE AGE OF MIRACLES just wasn't for me. The premise of the earth slowing its rotation for no reason scientists can tell was very interesting, but the execution was not.
The adult narrator takes you back to when "the slowing" first began, when she was 11, and I found the narrative very flat and disengaging, it didn't hold my interest at all.
The pace was very slow with a lot of little day-to-day details and descriptions bogging down the pace of the plot. And when something interesting did happen, you were half asleep and too uninterested to notice. I read the first 50 pages, then skimmed to see how it ended.
The writing style wasn't my cup of book, but this may be a great read for teenagers.
The adult narrator takes you back to when "the slowing" first began, when she was 11, and I found the narrative very flat and disengaging, it didn't hold my interest at all.
The pace was very slow with a lot of little day-to-day details and descriptions bogging down the pace of the plot. And when something interesting did happen, you were half asleep and too uninterested to notice. I read the first 50 pages, then skimmed to see how it ended.
The writing style wasn't my cup of book, but this may be a great read for teenagers.
Helpful Score: 4
This is a coming of age story authentically narrated by Julia, a middle school student living with her parents in California. The usual adolescent angst is there: first love, shifting friendship, first bra. The unusual part is that the story is set against the uncertainty of a world that is literally slowing down. There's more promise than greatness in the novel, but still a worthwhile read.
Helpful Score: 4
This book frustrated me by having such an interesting premise and failing to follow through in execution. The pace of the story, mirroring the length of days, was at times painfully slow and the plot never seemed to go anywhere. The writing style and idea were unique enough that I would try another book by the author in the future, but this one just didn't do it for me.
Helpful Score: 4
I am thoroughly disappointed with this book. It's from the perspective of a tweenager in middle school during the end of the world. It sounds like a good idea- a coming of age story around an international crisis- but its execution is majorly flawed. The main character speaks in unintended prose and every paragraph ends with an overdramatic and unnecessary overgeneralization about life. For example: "My mother waited in car at the curb until the bus arrived, convinced that danger, like potatoes, breeds in the dark." Potatoes. What. And another melodramatic observation: "Grown under similar conditions, we had become very different, two specimens of girlhood, now diverging." At the end of every paragraph you will find the 12 year old philosopher making another angsty claim about nothing at all. The book is supposed to be creepy, but I found myself laughing at the botched construction of the sentences. "And how miraculous it would soon seem that I was once a happier girl, less lonely and less shy. But I guess every bygone era takes on a shade of myth. With a little persuasion, any familiar thing can turn abnormal in the mind." There's too much foreshadowing, too. 99% of the sentences are either philosophical musings provoked by nothing or foreshadowing for events that either don't happen or are too small to require foreshadowing. The only reason I made it through the book was the hope that it would get better, which it didn't. By the time I was halfway through, I figured that I might as well finish it seeing as how I had come so far. Nothing happens in the book. I wanted to give a fair warning to anyone considering reading this book. Don't.
Helpful Score: 3
This was a very interesting book, to say the least. It starts off right away, no holds bar and gets right down to it....the earth's rotation is slowing down. Birds start dying, then plants, animals, etc.
This story is told out the eyes of a girl named Julia, who is looking back on the beginning of the slowing and how her life has to change and evolve over the course of about a year or so. We see how she and her friends and parents deal with the slowing and her relationship with a boy named Seth. Julia and Seth share a sweet little romance, but in the end, parishes, unfortunately.
Julia mainly focuses on how the slowing effects her life and the people around her, not so much the world as a whole, which I get. She's a teenager and teenagers are typically self-centered and don't focus on much of anything other than their own lives. But, I was left wanting to know more of what happened to other parts of the world due to the slowing and was left wondering what would I do if this actually happened. I even wanted to know more about Circadia and how these "Real Timers" coped with the slowing. I had a lot of questions, and they never seemed to be answered.
I thought the ending was a really lame. We jump from Julia being young tweenager, 11-12 years old, to all of a sudden she's 23. Whaaaatttt???? There is just way too much time in between there that is left unsaid and then the story is done. Just done... Like that......Left hanging there. I read the last chapter and looked around dumbfounded. What the heck!?! Not good, in my opinion.
The rest of the book was great, but the ending was horrid. So disappointing. I feel this story had so much potential to be a fantastic story, but I was just left feeling flat. 3.5 out of 5 stars for me because of the poor ending. I am glad I read it though.
This story is told out the eyes of a girl named Julia, who is looking back on the beginning of the slowing and how her life has to change and evolve over the course of about a year or so. We see how she and her friends and parents deal with the slowing and her relationship with a boy named Seth. Julia and Seth share a sweet little romance, but in the end, parishes, unfortunately.
Julia mainly focuses on how the slowing effects her life and the people around her, not so much the world as a whole, which I get. She's a teenager and teenagers are typically self-centered and don't focus on much of anything other than their own lives. But, I was left wanting to know more of what happened to other parts of the world due to the slowing and was left wondering what would I do if this actually happened. I even wanted to know more about Circadia and how these "Real Timers" coped with the slowing. I had a lot of questions, and they never seemed to be answered.
I thought the ending was a really lame. We jump from Julia being young tweenager, 11-12 years old, to all of a sudden she's 23. Whaaaatttt???? There is just way too much time in between there that is left unsaid and then the story is done. Just done... Like that......Left hanging there. I read the last chapter and looked around dumbfounded. What the heck!?! Not good, in my opinion.
The rest of the book was great, but the ending was horrid. So disappointing. I feel this story had so much potential to be a fantastic story, but I was just left feeling flat. 3.5 out of 5 stars for me because of the poor ending. I am glad I read it though.
