As the narrator and protagonist of The Age of  Miracles, Julia is a 23-year-old woman recalling when “the slowing” first begins. The deceleration of Earth started when she was just coming of age at the cusp of 12 years old. As a girl, Julia is shy and awkward. In a sense, she is an only child twice over—the one child begat by her parents as well as a singular outsider that is an outcast to her peers. Julia loses her best friend, Hanna, as they grow apart due to adolescence, circumstances surrounding “the slowing,” or both. Hanna finds a new best friend who shares her family’s religious values, and Julia finds herself navigating the unfriendly halls of school alone. Julia must balance the tensions of home, of school, and of the world at large, yet her only reprieve is in the company of her crush, Seth Moreno.

Throughout the novel, Julia questions whether “the slowing” has affected the behaviors of those she knows. She surmises that “[f]or reasons […] never fully understood, the slowing—or its effects— altered the brain chemistry of certain people, disturbing most notably the fragile balance between impulse and control” (246). Julia holds on to this concept, rationalizing her father’s infidelity as well as her momentary lapses of rebellion.