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3.75 stars

Annie is heavily pregnant (37 weeks) and shopping one morning for a crib at Ikea in Portland, Oregon, when the long-predicted Big One strikes the west coast. The massive earthquake leaves her buried under shelving units but she’s pulled out by the extremely snotty sales clerk who, just moments before, had completely dissed Annie and driven her to rage but who now becomes her partner on the long trek on foot to find their loved ones. And thus begins a very long and dangerous day through a wrecked city, full of many perils, human and otherwise. It has its moments of suspense, for sure, but the book is really more of a long rumination by Annie (the story is told in the first person) about her life: the lacklustre job that leaves her frustrated and joyless, her growing irritation with her husband, an aspiring actor who’s been at it for years and getting nowhere fast and who contributes little to the family purse, and her growing resentment about that and their mounting squabbles. As she struggles on, trying to reach her husband and fearful of his fate, she feels a great shift into a new perspective on her life that the earth’s tilt has caused.