The Last Days Of California Essay

The Last Days of California is a coming of age novel about a family on a road trip to California so they can be the last ones to be raptured before the apocalypse. It’s a cool idea for a story, and Mary Miller makes it seem like a plausible thing the characters to do. However, the novel falls short trying to juggle the characters and their intentions, as well as oddly pacing the novel over four days.
The novel is narrated by Jess, a teen girl who has self-esteem issues, and talks about food a lot. However, at times it seems like the main character is really her older sister Elise. In places, paragraphs open with what she is doing rather than Jess or her thoughts. While it is important to get across that Jess looks up to her sister, placing Jess’s world around her dramatically takes away from her character.
The other who characters in the book, Jess’s mother and father, are almost always present, yet the reader doesn’t learn much about them. They only seem to have pseudo-personalities. Jess’s father is a devout “The End Is Neigh” Christian,

and her mother is a former Catholic that just goes along with her father. There isn’t much else the characters do, and leave the reader to question their motivations and actions at almost every turn.
I mentioned that The Last Days of California is a coming of age novel, but it doesn’t seem to make that decision until the very end of the book.

The only way Jess seems out of place, is when she compares herself to Elise, and sees herself as not being pretty. This is resolved by her quick switch into thinking that maybe she’s not that bad looking, and having a one night stand with a guy at a hotel. The novel seems to be saying that losing one’s virginity is the only requirement for adulthood, which is an extremely absurd way of thinking. While some people’s coming of age may happen around the same time as their first sexual experience it is far from the case for most people. This plot point seems to say a lot more about the author than about people in general, or even the characters. I would have enjoyed the novel much more if Jess’s self-discovery came from the cross-country road trip, or if it were left unresolved

altogether.
One of the things the novel does well is bring the idea of religion, and the characters’ belief in the rapture into nearly everything they do. They are big ideas, and it is entertaining to see the characters deal with them in their own particular way. It brings a flare to the novel that is unfortunately absent when it comes to most other aspects.
For the average audience member, The Last Days of California is a book worth reading particularly on a long car ride. It is sure to keep you entertained with its unique perspective. However, if you are like me and like a little more story in the books you read, it shouldn’t take a rapture to figure out you should read something else.