Jason Kane's Reviews > Station Eleven

Station Eleven starts out with great promise, but ultimately becomes rather monotonous as it goes on. I had high hopes given the thematic premise evoked by the tagline, "Survival is insufficient," but too much time was spent bouncing around between past and present. The novel depicts a post-apocalyptic mid-west where a band of actors and musicians travel to perform Shakespeare and inspire. This is the story's strength, but just when things get going, the author (Emily St. John Mandel) meanders back to flashbacks of one character's life before the pandemic. There are some beautiful passages in this book and some real subtext, especially in terms of the subtle comparison between 17th Century Europe and modern dystopian America. Nonetheless, the book leaves me unsatisfied by the end. I don't get to read as many books as I'd like these days, so I was truly hoping for something great here, but alas - it was not a book of infinite jest or excellent fancy.