Station Eleven in What's the Name of That Book???

May 01, 2015 Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: z2015, bookclub, readbooks-female-author-or-illust, zz-5star, goodreads-author, novel, speculative-fiction, reviewed, 1-also-at-librarything, orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned-kids

I read this for my real world book club January meeting. I’m really glad that a fellow member suggested it. It had been on my to read shelf but so are thousands of other books that can languish there forever.

This is my kind of book: speculative fiction but with our real world and real people and a plausible story. Pandemic disease is also of interest to me, as are post-apocalyptic books, especially ones that spend a lot of time focusing on day-to-day life, as this one does.

Overall, I think this I read this for my real world book club January meeting. I’m really glad that a fellow member suggested it. It had been on my to read shelf but so are thousands of other books that can languish there forever.

This is my kind of book: speculative fiction but with our real world and real people and a plausible story. Pandemic disease is also of interest to me, as are post-apocalyptic books, especially ones that spend a lot of time focusing on day-to-day life, as this one does.

Overall, I think this is a brilliantly told story. It’s very clever. I loved the various storylines and timelines and how they connected with one another, and they did so nearly perfectly. It’s one of those books I’d like to reread and know from the start everyone’s story and what happens to them. I was very grateful for all the flashbacks. My favorite portions tended to be the events that happened right after and right before the collapse, and then I also loved the ending.

I was fascinated by almost all the characters and appreciated that there were always many I could root for, and even the ones I couldn’t, I could feel some empathy for them.

I guessed fairly early on who the prophet was but really had no idea what would happen until it was revealed.

I understand why Shakespeare’s are the plays appealing to (some of) the survivors, and the music too, as they were overall pre-technology so therefore also post technology. I also got a kick out of how a sort of religion/cult could arise from basically nothing, but it made sense. I’m glad that those parts were a relatively small part of the story. At first I thought the wonderful premise for the story didn’t need the extra dramatic plot points, but then it became clear that every character and sub-story were there for a reason.

I think that this is a really thought provoking book and will be good for our book club discussion. It made me think about what matters most, what I could and could tolerate, how I’d fare should these events come to pass and I was one of the survivors. There are many sad parts, some tragic, but I found the book to be so absorbing and not really depressing. There is definitely hope in this story.

One of my pet peeves: What’s with books that have many pages missing page numbers, especially with no pattern as to which pages have numbers and which don’t?! ...more

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Aug 13, 2015 Wealhtheow rated it liked it

Shelves: post-apocalyptic

A flu pandemic kills most of the human population, and civilization as we know it ends. Twenty years after the pandemic, humans in Northern America live isolated lives, at most a few hundred in an area. There is no electricity, running water, antibiotics; most people spend their time just trying to survive. The tale weaves backward and forward in time, from decades before the plague to decades after it, following characters whose lives were all touched in some way by one famous actor, Arthur Lea A flu pandemic kills most of the human population, and civilization as we know it ends. Twenty years after the pandemic, humans in Northern America live isolated lives, at most a few hundred in an area. There is no electricity, running water, antibiotics; most people spend their time just trying to survive. The tale weaves backward and forward in time, from decades before the plague to decades after it, following characters whose lives were all touched in some way by one famous actor, Arthur Leander. One was his best friend, another the child actress who watched him die onstage during King Lear. There's a certain interest in watching various objects or ideas pass through him to other characters: for instance, his ex-wife wrote a graphic novel he passes on to the child actress and to his son, and each takes very different lessons from it. The characters themselves are believable and feel like they have lives of their own, although I didn't actually like them much. Not that I disliked them either, but I just didn't feel particularly interested in what happened to them.

I have two problems with this book. One, I like books with plots, and this one is basically a meditation on civilization, memory, and what is immortal. Although action takes place and characters move from one area to the next, there isn't anything in the way of an actual plot.

Two, I just didn't buy the worldbuilding. I felt like the author chose a pandemic to end the world, but then didn't think through what would happen after the flu passed. Human civilization completely collapses after the flu, and I can't figure out why. Yes, the first few months or even year was undoubtedly difficult, and I understand that living through the deaths of everyone you know has got to be hugely traumatizing. But for civilization to remain at a pre-industrial level for TWENTY YEARS after the pandemic strains my imagination. Character after character bemoaned the lack of food, medicine, technology and knowledge, even though none of those things were actually destroyed by the flu. Why didn't anyone just eat preserved food? With such a tiny percentage of the population left, there would have been plenty to go around. The food supply is only very barely brushed upon, despite it supposedly being a huge concern of all the characters--we get a couple in-passing mentions of people hunting deer and one mention of planting crops near the airport, and that's it. Nothing about the physical changes to people's bodies that must have occurred when they went from a sedentary lifestyle to one of constant physical labor. Nothing about how this changed their way of thinking. Instead, pages and pages of characters remembering the same couple dinner parties with Arthur from different perspectives. Too, I couldn't understand why none of the characters cared at all about recreating the technological marvels they bemoaned the lack of. There are plenty of textbooks and how-to guides available, and every part of our existing infrastructure was still available. And yet no one (until the last few pages) was at all interested in learning medicine from medical textbooks, raiding hospitals or veterinary clinics, or trying to create bicycle or water-powered electrical generators? It was so weird!

If I were a different reader, neither of these issues would bother me at all; I might even think of them as positives. Not everyone wants to read about survival tactics, after all. My priorities as a reader (a world that makes sense, characters I care about, a plot arc) were unsatisfied by this book, but it's well-written and thoughtful, and perhaps that could make other kinds of readers very happy. ...more

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Feb 07, 2016 El rated it really liked it

Shelves: society-went-boom, 21st-centurylit, library-borrow, peer-pressure

I wasn't planning on reading this book... probably ever, really. Just because everyone is all like "I love this book!" and "It's amazeballs!" and usually when people rave for two years about a book like that, I'm seriously disappointed when I get around to it. I figured this would be no exception.

But then I found out that Emily St. John Mandel is coming to Pittsburgh next week, and tickets aren't all that expensive. I figured it might be nice to listen to her talk for a bit, but didn't want to g I wasn't planning on reading this book... probably ever, really. Just because everyone is all like "I love this book!" and "It's amazeballs!" and usually when people rave for two years about a book like that, I'm seriously disappointed when I get around to it. I figured this would be no exception.

But then I found out that Emily St. John Mandel is coming to Pittsburgh next week, and tickets aren't all that expensive. I figured it might be nice to listen to her talk for a bit, but didn't want to go in as a Mandel virgin because even $15 is too much for me to spend on someone I might not even like.

I got the book from the library, thinking it would take me a week to read it. But I breezed through it.

It's not a complicated read. The story moves along at a pretty nice clip, and it held my interest all the way through, though occasionally I felt Mandel took things a tad too far just in the sense of her scene-building.

The story is getting to be pretty well known around literary circles these days (and there's talk of a movie eventually, so expect to hear more about it, bookworms!), so I'll keep that brief. The largest detail is that the world is forever changed by what is known as the "Georgia flu", a plague that wipes out a great many people, leaving the world pretty much destroyed.

What makes this an interesting story about a dystopian civilization that is somewhat different than the others is that it doesn't just focus on the plague itself, or the aftermath. This story jumps around through time, but not in an annoying way that I actually despised in books like Cloud Atlas. Here it was done with some skill and a nice sense of detail that I think sets Mandel apart. (Says I, having only read one of her books.)

I know there are complaints about the flu itself, and this and that other thing about the way the civilization wound up, and I won't deny there's not room for some questions. There's always room for those sorts of questions. I don't feel that was necessarily the focus of Mandel's book, but it didn't (for me, anyway) distract from the story. And I am usually highly distracted by things like that when I read. I can be really fucking nit-picky.

What I especially appreciated about this book is that Mandel managed to make me, as the reader, think about my own life. It made me think about all the things and people I have taken for granted, not out of any malicious reasoning, but just because I'm so used to seeing them and I'm not sure how I would feel if they just weren't there tomorrow or ever again. The technologies I've grown accustomed to, even though I am fairly Amish compared to a lot of my peers - I like my old phone and the fact that our TV looks like a computer screen because we've never thought it important enough to buy a big-screen TV; but what we do have works for us and I'm not sure how my life would be if all of a sudden that world I've known and built is completely destroyed.

It's not a perfect novel, but it was a lot of fun to read. ...more

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Dec 24, 2020 Kate Wutz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020, own

Reading this book during a pandemic proved an incredibly emotional experience. There was gratitude, of course, that the COVID pandemic hasn’t been as bad as the one in this book; but there was also fear, because I couldn’t put this book down and retreat into a pandemic-free existence. There was an immediacy to the story that wouldn’t have existed when this novel was published. How easily could our grid blink out? How close did we come to the future in this book? How close are we still? I cried a ...more

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Jul 16, 2022 Kate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, 2022, age-adult, post-apocalyptic

Years ago, an actor died onstage, and within days a plague overtook the world. Now, a young actress, Kirsten, part of that production, travels with a Shakespeare company through dangerous territories to perform for the pockets of civilization that remain. When they come across a community turned into a cult, referring to a mysterious prophet, the trail eventually connects them all.

I watched the TV series before reading this, and now I'll have to watch it again because I think the ending was diff ...more

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Sep 16, 2016 Mandy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks

It has been a really long time since I've read a book that slayed me as much as Station Eleven. I'm at a loss for words to describe just how phenomenal this book is on so many different levels. The writing was exquisite and the non linear narrative was so well executed, and necessary in my opinion, to establish pacing and balance out the heaviness of the plot. I really cannot sustain a book that doesn't have at least one character that I can attach to, and man Mandel is like the J.J. Abrams of w ...more

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Feb 14, 2016 Rachel rated it it was amazing

Nearly perfect book, with the only blemishes being (1) the flawed premise of the book and (2) some unbelievable scenes (example below). The novel is great because it has believable, relatable characters who evolve, acting in ways that make sense for who they are, a carefully crafted story with criss-crossing plotlines and non-jarring transitions from past to present to memories, with details revealed gently and progressively, building suspense without disappointing or shocking anyone, and a sati Nearly perfect book, with the only blemishes being (1) the flawed premise of the book and (2) some unbelievable scenes (example below). The novel is great because it has believable, relatable characters who evolve, acting in ways that make sense for who they are, a carefully crafted story with criss-crossing plotlines and non-jarring transitions from past to present to memories, with details revealed gently and progressively, building suspense without disappointing or shocking anyone, and a satisfying sense of having traveled to a post-apocalyptic world where everything is different, but nothing has changed.

It has been a long time since I have read a novel and can truly say "no complaints. This was GREAT!"

The premise of the book was far-fetched, but I don't really care. I think the author wanted to get on with telling her cool story. She didn't fuss too much over how it happened; she just wanted to say, "POOF! No more electricity or gas-powered engines, and let's see what the world looks like!" That's OK with me. Unfortunately she chose, as the agent of world change, a crazy bad flu that came in and killed off 99% of the population in a week, without ruining any infrastructure.

It makes no sense that with 1% of the world's population remaining (70 million people), no one could visit a hydroelectric dam, check out the "safety and standard operating procedures" manuals lying around, press some buttons, and figure out how to make the thing go. Same thing with oil drilling platforms and all that stuff. The gasoline did not go stale for a couple years, so there was plenty of time for at least a few of the remaining people to get over their trauma and shock, read some manuals, and get things going again.

Also it makes no sense that people out in the middle of nowhere got taken out by the plague, too. Like the folks at the "untouched" house which is found by some of the characters at one point in the book. The scene would have been believable if they had found the house perfectly clean and orderly WITHOUT the dead bodies in it. It would have been thought that the people were away on vacation or something when the flu hit, and that's why their house had been left so nice and neat. Clearly the house would not have been in that condition if the 3 occupants were in the middle of dying from a crazy bad flu. I don't how the author overlooked this, but it's OK.

Such flaws are few and far between. Clearly some suspension of disbelief is needed for a novel such as this, and I enjoyed the book very much. BRAVO! ...more

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Nov 07, 2022 Michelle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, ebook, lit_fic, award_winner, post-apocalyptic, lendable-ebook, book_club_irl

I have very mixed feelings about St. John Mandel's lyrically written post-apocalyptic novel. Several people whose opinions I value deeply rated this a glowing 5-star read, and I've ultimately decided I did not read the same book, because we live in a different world than when this novel garnered such praise in 2015.

On one hand, Station Eleven feels deeply real and honest. The whole idea that society will instantly go "Lord of the Flies" as soon as there's no adults around is both distasteful an I have very mixed feelings about St. John Mandel's lyrically written post-apocalyptic novel. Several people whose opinions I value deeply rated this a glowing 5-star read, and I've ultimately decided I did not read the same book, because we live in a different world than when this novel garnered such praise in 2015.

On one hand, Station Eleven feels deeply real and honest. The whole idea that society will instantly go "Lord of the Flies" as soon as there's no adults around is both distasteful and inaccurate. As someone working in public service, I know and love many people who have dedicated their lives to furthering the greater good, and we're not all going to be drowned by the sociopathic hordes. A traveling troupe of artists, performing simply because "survival is insufficient," for the love of it, for the self-actualization of choosing to bring Shakespeare and music to a world without, feels genuine and beautiful. The book is a thoughtful meditation on society's interaction with art, what we need of artists and what they need of (or whether they need) their audience. The writing is intimate and thoroughly unpretentious - I know each of these people, I understand them.

And yet, since this book's publication, we've now had a much closer experience with both global pandemic as well as the ugliness of humanity. My mind focuses much more easily on the brutal aspects of this story than on the humane ones, such that a traveling troupe of actors becomes merely a way for the story to move forward, rather than the diamond kernel of truth at the center. There's a lot of time-hopping from before the die-off to after, and instead of those before-times portions feeling like the connecting anchor to the past they're intended as, they're a distraction from what we have to live with now. Finally, there's a character who decides that his physical weakness will not enable him to survive this new world, so during the collapse he calmly, matter-of-factly decides to end his life... spiraling me into an unhealthy afternoon of equally matter-of-fact suicidal ideation. Real and honest cuts both ways, and maybe I need to escape that a little more. ...more

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Mar 16, 2015 Melissa Rochelle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebook, read-2015, dystopian-apocalyptic, scifi-fantasy, read-2020

How to describe this book...

It's a post apocalyptic story that follows a group of musicians and actors as they travel from town to town. It's also about a group of people who's lives are intertwined and connected because of Arthur Leander, a famous actor who dies during a production of King Lear on the very night that the Georgia Flu makes its way to North America. It's about how quickly (or not) we adapt to changes in our world, but still hold on to the past. It's about fear, survival, communit ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 Philip rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dystopian, audio

Authors, here's a deal I'll make you: You give me a well-written apocalyptic/dystopian novel involving a plague, and I'll give you five stars. Pretty much a guarantee.

Bonuses for this one: graphic novels, Shakespeare, Calvin and Hobbes. ...more

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