MAGNITUDE

Three friends demonstrate exceptional fortitude under harrowing circumstances.

This fast-paced novel about a real-life historic disaster opens in 1903 as first-person narrator Cora Henshaw, age 9, enjoys a family beach outing near San Francisco. It’s a prophetic day: They feel tremors—and Cora meets Oliver Brennan, who becomes her best friend. Three years later, a devastating earthquake strikes very early in the morning of April 18, 1906. Cora befriends Chi, a young Chinese American girl, when both plummet into a chasm. Through heroic efforts, the pair emerge largely unscathed, having forged a loyal alliance. Eventually, they connect with Oliver, whom Cora hasn’t seen in some time. Successive chapters signal hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute events as neighborhoods crumble, fires rage, and standing structures are dynamited to quell emergent blazes. Desperation reigns, and citizens are displaced. Nielsen sustains tension throughout as the intrepid trio scour decimated neighborhoods for loved ones. They confront San Francisco’s malevolent anti-Chinese bigotry, corrupt municipal officials, and two menacing Italian American teens. Backstories trace the breakdown of the close friendship between Cora’s and Oliver’s families (who are cued white) and Cora’s moral dilemma about gold coins she “finds” among the ruins. Unfortunately, though the author’s portrayals of Chi and the plight of Chinese people in San Francisco are warm and sympathetic, they lack depth and nuance.

A solid book that brings cataclysmic events into stark relief.