Station Eleven: Reviews by 2021 Reading Challengers

[Winter, Group Reads]

Tell us what you thought of the book! You can leave your review here. Even if you read the book outside of the group, please feel free to let us know what you thought of it.

Please make sure to mark your spoilers by typing "[spoiler]" at the start and [/spoiler] at the end but replacing the []s with <>s.

[Rachael]

I read this a few months ago. I won't be joining in this group read but I hope you enjoy it. This is my review:

June 2020
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Many countries are in/have been in lockdown due to the corona virus pandemic. Maybe I picked a bad time to read this because the start was prophetically close to our current situation. I said a few months ago that now feels like chapter 1 of a dystopia. I don't want it to go any further if it's anything like the events in the subtle yet haunting Station Eleven.
Ignoring the parallels with reality, this was a simmering, beautiful interconnected story that was very character driven. I couldn't put this book down. I would like to read it again when I'm not worrying so much about real life.

[Jess]

I read this back in 2015 when my reviews were much sparser! It is a book I still think about today.

I loved this book. It was a really interesting way of doing post-apocalyptic fiction, a genre which is quite saturated at the moment. There were lots of characters but enough time was given to each of them and the writing was lovely. I highly recommend.

[Eirelyn]

I read this book back in June 2020 & enjoyed it. I gave it 4.25 stars & this was the (spoilery) review I wrote for it.

(view spoiler)[***HERE, THERE BE SPOILERS***

I really enjoyed this book. I thought it started out really well and then got kind of slow after the 1st part. But then it picked back up again and was really good. The story bounces around a lot -- character to character and past to present -- but I actually enjoyed that element, and it didn't seem overdone or confusing to me.

I loved that there was so much backstory on all of the characters. It took a little bit to get around to everyone, but most of them were covered really well. Although, I would have liked to have seen a little more depth to August & some of the other symphony members. I just found it odd that they had all been together for basically 2 decades, and they still referred to most of them as "3rd cello" or "6th guitar" or whatever.

It was interesting how everyone's paths crossed in the past and then again in present day. I really liked that element to the story. And I hadn't even realized that The Prophet was Tyler until way into the story! I just hadn't even really thought about who The Prophet had been before the world went to hell.

The similarity to current events was unsettling. But in a way that made the book feel more real. I had similar feelings back in March when I read Bird Box. (hide spoiler)]

[Karin]

Sure, I reread this for a reading game elsewhere in 2020, and will put my review here. I wrote a new one and have the old one after (had to write a review for the game) but this is longer than the reviews I normally write.

4 stars

This was a reread for me, and once again it is a well written four star read. It's a bit different reading it a second time, although I've read enough books in the past few years that even though I knew a fair bit about it, there were things I'd forgotten, etc. This time I looked up that island Arthur is supposedly from, but it's a fictional island (or else she just renamed Denman Island since that showed up instead and the shape of it basically fits what she said). I looked it up to see if it was an island I could have spotted from where I grew up.

I did enjoy reading about The Travelling Symphony again and when the world has/had no television, radio or recorded entertainment, travelling entertainers were usually welcomed.

It was interesting reading this during all of these stay-at-home times during Covid-19, which is not nearly as virulent as the fictional "Georgia Flu" of the novel, but that's not why I read it. I checked it out by mistake and then decided I may as well reread it before my library reopens and I get to reread The Glass Hotel which isn't really a sequel but apparently has one or more characters from this book.

I would say that what I initially wrote holds true even now, so I've left it below.

Original review:
It's a post-apocalypse world, since there is no ruling body, not a dystopia per say. This novel spans many years, from before the pandemic that wipes out the vast majority of the human race to twenty years after. This is a novel that entwines the lives and events of a number of people during that time that end up telling a cohesive story.

We start in Toronto at the very start of the pandemic in Canada and the US, with Kirsten Raymonde, age 8, still on stage when world famous actor Arthur Leander dies of a heart attack, despite the best efforts of former paparazzo, newly trained paramedic Jeevan Chaudhary to revive him with CPR. The tale moves forward at the immediate, then diverges back and forth through the lives of some of the main characters. The title of this novel is based on a character in an amazingly well done pair of comic books that were given to Kirsten by Arthur prior to his death.

Mandel can write well (rhyme unintentional, but left) and there are many good thing about this book. I cannot, however, give it a full five stars for a few reasons. One is that there are some very stereotypical things here common to so many post-apocalyptic tales--but not bad enough to drag it down to 3 stars, partly because Mandel has wisely made a few points more realistic than many. One of the other problems I have with this is the relatively immediate switch to none of modern conveniences. Given how we have seen people come together in times like this over and over again in recent times, this is rather unrealistic. Granted, this is set in an area where running water depends on water towers with electric pumps (not like out in the west coast where, in BC at least, you have plenty of reservoirs uphill so that you have no need for these; it would take far longer for things to decay), but there would have been survivors with knowledge, and, what's more, it's likely that someone would have been smart enough to learn this in the internet before the power went out for good, and keep things up and running somewhat longer. Even in winter, when this starts.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book better than average and may well read another novel by this author in the future.

[suzanne_between_pages]

Disappointed in every way. I don’t often read in this genre but for me this book was not the one to fall in love with it.
Too many characters, no clear plot and a weak link between the past and future.
I don’t like the texts from the Bible in it. Unnecessary in my opinion. The lines to Shakespeare and a midsummer night’s dream I don’t understand either in this story.
Maybe I’ve missed the clue, but this was clearly not my favorite.

[Liz]

I read this book back in Oct. 2020. I gave it 3***....It was very difficult to get into this book and had a disappointing ending. Frankly, looking back, I'm wondering why I gave it a 3***. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, and I was definitely surprised when I saw the it was the January reading challenge.

[Kris]

Read as part of the 2021 Reading Challenge January Group Read. Not the typical type of book I would read but was open to suggestion. Wasn't too enthusiastic when I realized the setting, as I had just finished reading the Pandemic series by Bobby Akart.

I'd say overall the book was well written and kept me turning pages. Enjoyed each character and story line, (view spoiler)[ with the exception of the Traveling Symphony (hide spoiler)].

Being used to reading thrillers/suspense/mysteries, it was a little slow for me. At the same time, I enjoyed that each story kept me interested and wasn't cliche. What I assumed would/could happen didn't - which is a good thing.

Didn't drag on too long and enjoyed the ending as every situation seemed to have proper closure.

Would recommend but just not my cup of tea.

[Tamara]

I just finished Station Eleven about 5 minutes ago and I have to say I really enjoyed it.
You would think while living a pandemic this isn’t the right book to read but maybe because of it, I enjoyed it a lot. It’s well written and I could barely put it aside.
I liked that it has time jumps and that all characters are in some way connected to each other. It was definitely an interesting read. And although I feel like not much actually happened, it didn’t get boring at all. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. A light and interesting but intriguing read.

[TCampbell]

Arthur Leander dies onstage while performing King Lear. From there, Station Eleven takes us through seemingly random scenes of the world as we know it coming to an end. A troupe of Shakespearean performers travels the post apocalyptic Midwest because ‘mere survival is insufficient’
Reading this story, I was chilled by the similarity between the fictional pandemic and our current COVID crisis. Could civilization really end overnight? But the author’s beautiful writing and way of tying all these random threads together really drew me in and conveyed a message of hope in the end. Even in Dystopia, life is beautiful.

[Angie]

Tamara wrote: "I just finished Station Eleven about 5 minutes ago and I have to say I really enjoyed it.
You would think while living a pandemic this isn’t the right book to read but maybe because of it, I enjoy..."

I agree Tamara. I really enjoyed it, and once I started, struggled to put it down. It was a slow story line, but I love how each of the character arcs intersected and how each of the main characters were connected to Arthur.

The current Covid situation also makes it uncomfortably relevant.

[Ushashi]

I just finished the book and am really glad to have read it. Here's my review:

"Jeevan was crushed by a sudden certainty that this was it, that this illness Hua was describing was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life."

Rarely does a sentence hit closer to home than this. Reading a book about a pandemic induced apocalypse while living in the middle of another pandemic is frightening. This book is so realistic. There is no over-dramatic moments or heroic characters. The people are real and the moments are so well-grounded. The back and forth between timeline subtly creates contrast between lives of before and after, while bringing together the story beautifully. There are times when it made me stop to think about how much of this modern life we take for granted. The end might seem simplistic for a dystopia but I loved it. Mandel is an incredible writer. The book flows like a poetry. And it tells a story of the indomitable spirit of mankind even in the face disaster. It gives hope, which in times like this is priceless.

[Wade]

During my photography obsessed teen years, I sometimes conducted a thought experiment: if I was the last person on earth, would I still take pictures? (a: yes). This memory came flooding back during Station Eleven’s introduction to the Travelling Symphony and hooked me right away.

Station Eleven has been on my short list for a while, but after enduring a year of Covid, reading about a pandemic was probably the last thing I wanted to do. But a chance to participate in my first Goodreads group read? Count me in. In fact, our group is reading this in Jan ‘21 just as the more contagious variant of Covid-19 is bringing our own pandemic to scary new levels almost every day. I found myself constantly making mental notes on ordinary things to be thankful for: lights, food, shelter/safety, and even just ordinary local news - Francois’ interview is such a nice touch. And Clark’s compulsion to curate the Museum of Civilization is an original idea any documentarian can relate to. How do we want to be remembered?

There’s a lot to love in the intricate and surprising layers of story that jumps back and forth in time. One of the scenes I loved was the dinner party and particularly the interplay between Miranda and Elizabeth sitting on the floor talking about art as a brutal relationship transition approached.

(view spoiler)[
How often do you get a chance to see the formative years of a young villain forged under tremendous stress? It didn’t make the Prophet completely sympathetic, but it was another interesting bit of light on what could have been a cliched character. The Prophet sections of the book had parallels to the HBO series The Leftovers where people are driven to extremes to connect dots to seek explanation and order for chaotic world events. Loved that. Wanted more.
(hide spoiler)]

I did have a few places where it was hard for me to suspend my disbelief. Only 2% of the world’s population go missing during HBO's The Leftovers. But everyone on the planet seems irrevocably damaged and scarred. On S11, the people of the upper peninsula seem surprisingly intact, despite losing 99.9% and suffering the collapse.

I also found myself wondering if the author had any experience participating in theater groups. The groups I’ve observed work so incredibly hard to pull off a production, they seem forged by bonds most of us are not even aware of. I don’t think that comes through in S11. I kept thinking they would not be so consumed by petty bickering during their daily travels or at least the energy that drives and sustains them would be more palpable. Maybe that’s partially due to the clever but impersonal naming convention for members of the symphony (seventh guitar).

The audiobook is wonderful and Kirsten Potter’s voice and accents really helped paint a picture of the characters. Five stars on sound production.

I really appreciated the hopeful tone of Station Eleven and loved the scene in the air traffic control tower where lights can again be mysteriously seen in the distance. What’s not to love about the idea that survival alone is not sufficient? I very much hope the survivors of our future pandemics have the grit and drive to pursue art, music, and maybe a little photography. Come to think of it, we could use a little of that resilience right now.

[Elizabeth]

I did not expect to love this book as much as I did. I read it to participate in this group but I found myself falling in love with all the characters in each chapter. It hit home with the pandemic, given everything that has happened in 2020. But it also made me appreciate that despite COVID, we are all still living and being human, and civilization didn't end. I feel like despite everything that happened in this book, it ended on a very hopeful note. I will definitely need to revisit this book often.

[Ashley]

I didn't hear about this book until I saw this group read and I decided to give it a try. I ended up really enjoy it, even in these times we are currently in. I have read other books with deadly diseases, but this was a very different take on it. I enjoyed how the story was told in the current times and looked back into the past of the characters.

[Valerie]

What happens when everything we take for granted disappears as civilisation falls apart in the aftermath of a deadly pandemic? A thought provoking book which intertwines the lives of survivors and poses questions about what really matters in life.

[Dan]

Has anybody ever had that feeling that you were just 'meant to read a book'? During lockdown, we thought it was bizarre when a trivial pursuit question came up about a 'Georgian Flu pandemic' called 'Station 11'. Then a week later, I join this group and the first read of the 2021 challenge was 'Station 11' !
Coincidence? Yes, but a happy one at that. I found the book really interesting and something completely different to anything I had read before. I have read fiction novels that jump from character to character, but not like this where I was unsure of who the main character was. It was interesting to see who I was drawn to throughout.
I am glad 2021 has started with this novel and hope that future recommendations are as well received. Many thanks.

[Shari]

This book has been on my to-read list for awhile now. I wasn't too sure about it since her book The Glass Hotel was a dnf for me. Thankfully I did like this book. The book jumped around quite a bit, but it was pretty easy to follow. I liked how certain items were linked in the different chapters. One of the characters is given a stone early in the book and this stone is talked about in several later chapters and you learn the history of the stone. I liked the book and would recommend reading it. Makes you think about our current life situation and how fast everything could go away.

[J]

I found it painfully average.
Character backstories pre-apocalypse were engaging and fun to read. Loved learning about Arthur, Jeevan, Miranda & Clark's lives. However, the story during 'present day' apocalypse fell flat. There wasn't any subversion of common tropes. Even if the stories tied together I didn't feel satisfied, felt like they were interconnected for the sake of it. 3/5, would not revisit.

[Noelle]

Liked it but didn’t love it. Appreciated how it drove home the importance of art and history to mankind. Liked the Jeevan, Miranda and Kirsten characters. Would have liked more of the Prophet.

[Woman Reading]

I wouldn't have read this book if it weren't for this group. I enjoyed it more than I had expected based on the GR synopsis.

I did wonder for most of the book how this tied in with the theme of hope. Yes, the Traveling Symphony aimed for living, not just surviving, but that didn't seemed to express enough hope to me. It was only what Clark had shown to Kirsten off in the distance at the end of the book did circumstances appear hopeful.


My review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Linda]

I really enjoyed the book, I thought it might make me feel terrible reading a book about a pandemic during one but strangely it made me feel better (potentially because it was so catastrophic in the book?)
I found the flashbacks distracting at first but then I really liked the backstories of the characters, and wanted to know more.

[ꪑꪖᦔꫀꪶ꠸ꪀꫀ]

I read this book as it was chosen for a book club I am in that's open to the general public here on GoodReads! As I was first reading the book I honestly hated it very much. The writing was intricate and so intertwined with other people that I was led to be so confused. The switching from different perspectives, sometimes inside the characters head, sometimes from an onlookers perspective. It was fascinating and challenging to read. At times I found it really hard to enjoy and understand the new world in which they're living in. However, as the story progressed I fell in love with the complete and udder REALNESS of these characters, they felt like real people who would see and meet on the street everyday. I also started to understand the book a lot more, and let me tell you that I was blindsided about who the Prophet was up until almost it was about to be discovered. It was incredible. I've never read such an intricate book before where EVERY SINGLE action taken by the characters lead to another event. Fascinating, incredible, I would so say go and give this a shot, however I don't think this book is for EVERYBODY!: :)

[Elizabeth]

I would never had read this book if I had not joined this group. In fact about a month ago I was adding books to read to a wishlist and my son said mom you would never read that . However, I really enjoyed this book and the message of hope in chaos. It is interesting that if you let it a book can help to shift perspective and be open to something you would usually be closed minded about (a post apocalyptic book!)

[Mitali]

Honestly this was an okay book to read. The fact that I was reading it along as the book club as my first ever book, I was able to enjoy it and the starting was a good pickup but throughout it confused me so i rated it 3/5. Looking for more books to read along with the book club :)

[Maura]

****

I wouldn’t have picked this book for myself, but the incentive of the group read inspired me to pick it up. I usually don’t enjoy stories that jump back and forth in time but found the back stories detailed enough and the characters strong enough that the time jumping didn’t bother me. I found the post apocalyptic world unsatisfying in the respect that it wasn’t nearly as challenging and conflict ridden as I would imagine, but give that a pass given my personal feelings about the actual state of our world at the moment. Overall, I appreciated the weaving of hopefulness throughout the story, and loved the conclusion, though I wanted one last vignette with Miranda.

[Joan]

I agree about wanting a little bit more of a story tie up with Miranda. I wasn't a fan of the jumping back and forth on this one. I felt there were too many characters to do that with this book. I also was confused a lot. I felt like the pandemic was pretty much nailed though and you can see how all of that would happen now that we're living through a pandemic that thankfully isn't as bad as this book. If anything this book made me appreciate that it could be much worse than it is. I rated it 3 stars. I'm not sure I'll remember any of the characters in the book. I will remember the parts about the pandemic though.

[SarahKat, Buddy Reads]

I love that a lot of you read this thinking it wouldn't be your type of book but ended up really liking it!

Here's my review:

I really liked this! I had some issues with believability and a few missed connections with characters but nothing that deterred my overall enjoyment. I had added this to read a while ago and didn't even remember the synopsis when I started reading, so the first few chapters were very exciting and unexpected and had me hooked! After that, the author sort of delves into some characters pre-pandemic and a lot of readers found this boring. I didn't mind it; I just had to sort of re-assess the book I was reading. This wasn't going to be an edge-of-your-seat fight for survival kind of post-apocalyptic world. It was going to be a character-driven story that weaves people and stories together through time.

(view spoiler)[The believability I had issues with was just how incredibly fast society shut down. It said somewhere in there that cell service and internet just went away, like within days of the outbreak, long before the power went out. I feel like these services would continue for a bit without too much maintenance. Maybe a month or more. Cell service should continue unless the entire signal went out for some reason.
Also, the fact that there is just NO ONE who knows to how to fix stuff seems strange. I mean I know a ton of people died, but did no one think, hey maybe I'll print like a bunch of how things work manuals while the internet is still up before everything goes further to shit? And there are just... books. It seems like it would take less than 20 years to get a little bit of something going.
I realize this is just a small group of people we're looking at and maybe in bigger cities where there is just more information readily available, they do have more stuff up and running.

Kirsten had a lot of connection with almost everyone through Arthur, but I wish there was a little more of that with some other characters, Jeevan especially. Also, it was so frustrating that these connections never came to light for her! (hide spoiler)]

[Eirelyn]

SarahKat wrote: "I love that a lot of you read this thinking it wouldn't be your type of book but ended up really liking it!

Here's my review:

I really liked this! I had some issues with believability and a few m..."

I can understand your frustration with all of (view spoiler)[Kristen's connections not being known to her. However, I kind of felt like that was part of the point -- people come & go, in & out of each other's lives, without ever truly knowing how they affect one another. People are connected in all sorts of ways (in this book as well as in real life) without ever knowing it. These characters are no exception, but I think, from the reader's standpoint, it sheds light on how one person can affect another's life & to maybe try to take better note of that & pay more attention to how you might be affecting those around you, even those people you only ever encounter for a few moments. (hide spoiler)]

[SarahKat, Buddy Reads]

Eirelyn wrote: "SarahKat wrote: "I love that a lot of you read this thinking it wouldn't be your type of book but ended up really liking it!

Here's my review:

I really liked this! I had some issues with believab..."

That's true Eirelyn. I shouldn't say it was a negative. I had a love-hate relationship with that particular thing. Although, (view spoiler)[I do still wish Jeevan had been a bigger part, even by himself without a connection, of the 20 years later portion. (hide spoiler)]

[Eirelyn]

SarahKat, I completely agree with you on that. The book (view spoiler)[started with Jeevan & I thought there would be much more of him throughout & later on. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see much of that. (hide spoiler)]

[Nancy-Ann]

I finished this book yesterday. I thought it was decent.

(view spoiler)[I admit, I thought of quitting it early on because I found the early chapters boring and predictable. It got more interesting with the more backstory provided, but it was a bit frustrating that it jumped around so much and took so much time building up to something. However, I really liked the characters after getting to know them and the apocalyptic world that was created.

So, basically, I liked the world and characters created as it was ending but not so much the journey to get that endpoint. (hide spoiler)]

[Lisa]

God damn! why I'm I having such a difficult time rating this book?! It's infuriating. I finished it a few days ago, and I haven't gotten any clearer on what I thought of it. I liked it, but it was kinda meh and overrated. I can definitely see all the positive attributes but it's just sooooo overhyped that I can't figure out what I think without everyone else's impressions. *sigh*

It was an okay book, I guess. While I struggled to get into it in the beginning, I really enjoyed the writing once I got used to it. What's more, I love the way the stories interconnects and intertwines throughout. But is it memorable for me ? I don't know.

[Denise]

Just finished reading. I hoped to love it more, but it was very well-written and of course, very timely. Quite scary to imagine our world being how it was portrayed here.

[Marie]

I was inspired to read Station Eleven by this group. I loved it! As it happens, I had just finished reading another of her books (The Glass Hotel) and I enjoyed her writing style so much that I was thrilled to start another by her. S11 did not disappoint.

(view spoiler)[ I loved her imagery around movement (walking, Frank's wheelchair, trucks used as wagons, airplanes, ships, shipping, living in gas stations, living in the airport), imagery around the written word (graphic novel, newspapers, the monologue/mistaken suicide note, collecting celebrity gossip from magazines, the Dear V. book, etc.), and imagery around light (the prophet and his followers, the hope for human kind that the electric light brought at the end). These aspects created a wonderful tapestry in my mind as I read. (hide spoiler)]

[Heather]

I liked this book. It kind of makes what's going on now in our own pandemic a little less scary. We do have a lot of death right now, but not at the level that is this book. We do have a lot of unrest going on with our political system, but we at least still have a political system and government and laws. It seemed scary to me just how fast everything seemed to stop.

[Wally Bradbury]

I was inspired to broaden my horizons by this group and decided to read this book.
I absolutely loved it.
I thought the story line was ironic in light of the current pandemic we have and thank God that ours isn’t as bad as the books was. LOL
Very intriguing storyline and I like the way that the station eleven comics traveled through time and survived.
I gave it five stars

[Sheila]

Just finished the book for my first group read, and kind of moved from thinking that I could NOT read a pandemic related book early on to thinking that although we’ve been on sheltering in place for close to a year now, it has certainly been manageable. I’m interested to hear my husband’s take on their complete breakdown as he is a real “if it won’t work the way it always has, we can still find a way to make a lot of things work” kind of person. I love that drama and music survive....always.

[esraa]

i have some mixed feelings about this book.
I read it for the group read, and i'll have to admit that it was captivating! t's the kind of books that makes me feel as if i'm sitting in front my tv, watching a thriller film, and not actually reading. the way the story began, it's pace, how everything connected together at the end, and the fact that at the end of the book we witnessed the events of the first chapter once again but from a different perspective... i loved that!

but i have a few troubles with it as i feel there's more that could have been said! there's more we could have known about the characters, and i'm left with a lot of unanswered questions. Like (view spoiler)[ Did Clark even tell Kirsten that he was arthur's friend? and if he did, what was her reaction? what did he tell her about Arthur? or maybe he didn't? i'd have loved to see even a paragraph from their conversation. And that electricity (i know it meant that there was a new hope for civilization and all that) but i'm wondering if it's source is from where Jeevan is staying? are the symphony travelling to where Jeevan lives? is there a possibility for Kirsten to recognize him? and for someone who actually enjoyed jeevan's story-line, i wish if he had encountered the characters once again, or if his story-line somehow lid to the museum as well. I don't know. I guess i was more interested in the characters more than the story itself. And Miranda didn't deserve to die alone in a foreign country. Come on, she was my favorite character! (hide spoiler)] overall, it was an enjoyable read!

[TerryJane, Challenges]

I finished this a couple of days ago and rated it 3 stars. It wasn't bad; it just didn't trip my trigger. I found it to be rather slow, and felt there were too many characters for my liking. I'd rather have had a smaller, better developed cast of characters to whom I could connect.

As for reading it during a pandemic, I was not particularly bothered by the timing of this read. Georgia Flu and Covid-19 seems very dissimilar in survival rate, plus Covid-19 has treatments and vaccines now available. Georgia Flu in Station Eleven spread and progressed so very rapidly, its behavior reminded me more of the escaped lab-created bio-warfare virus in Stephen King's The Stand.

[Elina]

I have finished the book last night, and I must say I had different feelings towards the book while reading. It started very well for me, but then there were parts that I didn't really enjoy. Although, the more to the end, it became more and more understandable why it all was written, as all of it was connected.
I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book the most, I really got a feeling of abandonness or loneliness, and eeriness.
While reading I thought I would rate the book 4 or at times even 3, but I ended up giving it a 5, as for me, the story was complete and left me with positive feelings.

[David]

My review.

There are a lot of things about this book that I should love. Structurally it's similar to Roboapocalypse that I loved. I like novels that are filled with incidents from many points of view. I like the concept of surviving, but that mere survival is insufficient.

BUT, I do not like Literary Fictions focus on the inner life of the isolated individual. Even the few people who have some sort of connection to other people do not get that relationship described. There's a curious detachment. Even though virtually all of the time is spent inside the characters' heads, they are never feeling anything other than vague disappointment.

Not my style.

[Saumya]

3 Stars | Audiobook | Read this as part of the January Group Read

When I started off with Station Eleven, I honestly believed I would end up really liking the book. The plot was eerie: a post epidemic world which killed close to 99% of the population, the world as we know gone and a distant thing of the past. The plot moves between Year 20 since the "collapse" and the years leading up to it.

For me the writing was a plus, the story had a definite flow, and it was engaging, mostly. However, after a while it was a lot of bizarre coincidences, the characters getting absurdly lucky. The only thing that kept me going was the narration - it was good - and the chapters were relatively short, which just gave incentive to finish them off quickly.

There were some parts which hit hard, the descriptions of the world "after collapse", the feeling of claustrophobia and loneliness, and yet the liberation one feels when we are not surrounded by noise and chatter of people and the constant buzz of phones. The imagery was both beautiful and haunting, and I feel it was also representative of how we as a civilization are fragile.

The context was all the more daunting because of the ongoing COVID crisis, which made some parts very real. There were a few lines which stuck with me:

“Survival is insufficient.”

“A life, remembered, is a series of photographs and disconnected short films.”

“The revelation of privacy: she can walk down the street and absolutely no one knows who she is. It's possible that no one who didn't grow up in a small place can understand how beautiful this is, how the anonymity of city life feels like freedom.”