Julia—the narrator of The Age of Miracles—is 11 years old when the world changes forever. It’s October, and time suddenly becomes elastic. One day, for no apparent reason, a day is suddenly 25 hours long. Three days later, 25:37 — and they continue to stretch. The Age of Miracles has the feel of an apocalyptic To Kill a Mockingbird or a more sober True Grit, with a knowing, worldly voice-over guiding the reader through the moment in her childhood that everything changed. Author Karen Thompson Walker takes the traditional literary trope of nostalgia for the timelessness of youth and makes of it a weird, subtly creepy, and engrossing novel in which time itself is a thing to fear.
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