Audio book review: The age of miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
The tricky thing about audio book reviews is trying to separate the performance of the reader from the text of the novel. A great reader might be able to make a dull book a bit more lively, but a bad reader can really kill what might otherwise be a worthwhile novel. I am not a fan of this performance, and I'm unsure of whether I liked the novel itself. Frankly, the read was so annoying that it has cast a dark shadow over my view of the novel.
The Age of Miracles is about Julia, a twelve year-old girl, who learns along with the rest of the world that the earth's rotation is slowing. Days and nights get longer, and the traditional 24 hour day is no longer really a 24 hour day. Sunrise might occur at noon, or six PM, or any other time, and the world is temporarily thrown into chaos. Gravity changes, crops struggle to grow, whales wash up on shore as their internal navigation is thrown off. Julia comes of age, with the same self-doubts and changing body that everyone else goes through, except her story happens while the world begins winding down. Julia's story is told from the point of view of a much older woman looking back at her coming-of-age, and there are any number of 'it was a different world back then' references littering the story. Author Karen Thompson Walker's speculative fiction offers no answers as to how the earth slowed, and many of the narrator's 'If we only knew then...' comments that seemed to be foreshadowing are left entirely unresolved by the book's end. The novel has appeared on many 'best of 2012' lists, and I question whether my poor view of the novel is due to the fact I listened to it on audio book.
Reader Emily Janice Card dragged this book out with a slow pace that seemed to mirror the Earth's ever-slowing spin in the novel. Card, or the audio book's director, seemed to think that because this was a coming of age book, Julia needed to have a voice that was depressed to the point of sounding suicidal. Countless times while enduring this audio book I thought about simply picking up the novel and reading it because the depressed inflections and pacing were so infuriating. Some audio books allow you to speed up the read, but unfortunately the player I was using didn't allow that. Even at double-speed this version would've lagged. I most definitely and sincerely do not recommend the audio version of this novel. I make a living recommending novels, and the audio version of this book made me sincerely dislike what might've otherwise been a book I'd recommend.
The Age of Miracles is about Julia, a twelve year-old girl, who learns along with the rest of the world that the earth's rotation is slowing. Days and nights get longer, and the traditional 24 hour day is no longer really a 24 hour day. Sunrise might occur at noon, or six PM, or any other time, and the world is temporarily thrown into chaos. Gravity changes, crops struggle to grow, whales wash up on shore as their internal navigation is thrown off. Julia comes of age, with the same self-doubts and changing body that everyone else goes through, except her story happens while the world begins winding down. Julia's story is told from the point of view of a much older woman looking back at her coming-of-age, and there are any number of 'it was a different world back then' references littering the story. Author Karen Thompson Walker's speculative fiction offers no answers as to how the earth slowed, and many of the narrator's 'If we only knew then...' comments that seemed to be foreshadowing are left entirely unresolved by the book's end. The novel has appeared on many 'best of 2012' lists, and I question whether my poor view of the novel is due to the fact I listened to it on audio book.
Reader Emily Janice Card dragged this book out with a slow pace that seemed to mirror the Earth's ever-slowing spin in the novel. Card, or the audio book's director, seemed to think that because this was a coming of age book, Julia needed to have a voice that was depressed to the point of sounding suicidal. Countless times while enduring this audio book I thought about simply picking up the novel and reading it because the depressed inflections and pacing were so infuriating. Some audio books allow you to speed up the read, but unfortunately the player I was using didn't allow that. Even at double-speed this version would've lagged. I most definitely and sincerely do not recommend the audio version of this novel. I make a living recommending novels, and the audio version of this book made me sincerely dislike what might've otherwise been a book I'd recommend.
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