The Age of Miracles

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.