Ages of Miracles

One of the best things about my Mom's houses growing up was the bookcases full of books. I would often linger at the bookcases, pull out a book, and read it. It's how I like to read books: engrossed when I feel like this is the book I should be reading. It's how I picked Voltaire's Candide to read. It's how I picked this book to read.

Mom had suggested the book when we were in Portland last month. It was on sale. I bought it, and plunked it on my bookcase in the "haven't read, read at some point" stack of books. I picked it up late last week, and read it fairly quickly. I enjoyed it.

The book is a young adult book about an 11-turned-12 year old girl's life in the first months of the Earth's rotation slowing from 24 hours in a day to 72 hours in a day, and how the world changes to adapt, or not adapt as the case is with some people and places. Much of the gross (as in "total" not as in "disgusting") science is accurate enough to my understanding: the changing of the magnetic fields, the change of the radiation reaching the planet surface, the dying of many plants unable to adapt so quickly to the longer, hotter days and longer, colder nights. Many of the speculated societal changes presented were plausible.

Both of these, the sufficiently accurate science and the plausibly accurate changes in society, meant I wasn't distracted by the wrongness of the story background (I didn't have to suspend disbelief other than the initial "the Earth's rotation suddenly slowed"), and was therefore able to enjoy the storyline of the life of an eleven year old girl, told from look-back of a 23 year old woman.

It was a well-told story. I enjoyed the book. A fast, engrossing read.

For anyone else, I'd say, send the author ten bucks and borrow the book from the library. Or from me.