'It is never what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown…'
What if our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours, until day becomes night and night becomes day? What effect would this slowing have on the world? On the birds in the sky, the whales in the sea, the astronauts in space, and on an eleven-year-old girl, grappling with emotional changes in her own life..?
One morning, Julia and her parents wake up in their suburban home in California to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth is noticeably slowing. The enormity of this is almost beyond comprehension. And yet, even if the world is, in fact, coming to an end, as some assert, day-to-day life must go on. Julia, facing the loneliness and despair of an awkward adolescence, witnesses the impact of this phenomenon on the world, on the community, on her family and on herself.
This is a beautifully written coming of age story. The writing is descriptive but not overbearing and conveys the sense of the slowing of time. Even though its a book about global as well as personal catastrophes and the surviving of them, there are no scientific breakthroughs to help. I enjoyed the way the novel revealed the ways humans survive on a day to day basis, slowly adjusting to the terrible things around us. I truly loved the ending. Overall, while it's very beautiful in both aesthetics and literature. My only complaint is since the book was quite short I felt that there were multiple opportunities to allow for more scientific explanations for the slowing of time. It is a book that with a little patience one can appreciate its power.
