Some books become moments, and The Age of Miracles was for me a moment. It was a book that I needed–that I didn’t know I needed–until after I’d begun reading.
It was like the book said
Oh, Jackie, let me bandage your wound before you lose too much blood.
and I said back
Oh, I did not realize that my side was gaping open. But yes please with the bandage.
I didn’t know I needed it. But I needed it. I needed it badly, and right then.
In The Age of Miracles, the days slow down. Lengthen. Fundamentally change, somehow, while still comprising both light and dark. Light and dark on a new timeline. Same and different.
The book is about Julia, 11, coming of age in a time and place that has become something else, too.
In the book, life and living seem at odds. And yet, life continues. The setting for Julia’s growing up is changed, but she nonetheless grows.
When I read this book, the parameters of my personal world had just dramatically shifted. My reality’s laws of nature had been rewritten, or discarded completely.
How to continue in a reality that does not resemble what you knew? How can something be related to anything else; how can anything mean anything when the anything that was has been balled up and thrown in the air, is now raining down on you like unfriendly confetti?
The Age of Miracles ends this way:
We dipped our fingers in the wet cement, and we wrote the truest, simplest things we knew–our names, the date, and these words: We were here.
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This post is part of Think Kit by SmallBox. Today’s prompt: Let’s explore the power of words. Did a writer delight you, make you think, or impact you in some other way? Write a review, or share a favorite line from something you’ve read.
Jackie Lutzke 