Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

79 reviews

sglance9's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Death, Kidnapping, Suicide, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

nedreadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Looking for a book about a pandemic to make you forget about our ongoing pandemic? Pandemiception.

Station Eleven is a dystopian science fiction novel written by Emily St. John Mandel. This novel follows a few individuals, looking at their lives before and after a mutation of the swine flu knocks out 99% of the Earth's population and shuts down most of the planet's infrastructure. 🦠❌

cw: pandemic, death, murder, suicide, cults, violence, kidnapping

This book was... wow. Let me start this by saying - if you think this book isn't a great one to read during a pandemic, you get a free pass. Put it back on your TBR shelf for a while. If you're feeling up to it, though, Emily St. John Mandel's writing does NOT disappoint. This novel is beautifully written and hard to put down, unwrapping the intricacy of relationships and survival in a post-apocalyptic world. The only thing that kept this book from being a five ⭐️ read for me was the ending - I felt like the ending was a bit rushed for my liking and didn't address a couple of topics and storylines that I was really curious about.

In short.. check in on your headspace and comfort level before picking this one up, but if you are feeling good about it - you're in for a dystopian treat!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Murder, Death, Grief, and Violence

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

fungivibes's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

3.75

A nice and unique take on a post collapse civilization. Not much really happens tho and the characters don't develop much. but I love the focus on art as an integral and important part of humanity and society.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Pedophilia

silver_valkyrie_reads's review against another edition

funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really couldn't say why I enjoyed this book. If I tried to explain it to anyone, I'd take about two sentences to explain the premise, which sounds fascinating and then end up with, "But all that happened was..." 

There are some interesting observations about life, and whole lot of random everyday life (pre-, mid-, and post-apocalypse), and a few very bad life decisions. Overall I found the characters likeable, but rarely admirable or especially interesting. There was some suspense around how different storylines fit together, and the resolution was quietly satisfying (though not surprising by the time got there). 

My only explanation for liking this book is that the writing must have been amazing (rather unobtrusively amazing, but that's how I prefer writing styles) to keep me so engaged, so I will probably try more books by the author.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Infidelity

Minor: Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, and Mental illness

cabuff's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Kidnapping, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Rape and Adult/minor relationship

s_p_a_r_k_s's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really struggled with the star rating for this book. On the one hand, the writing is drop-dead gorgeous, the worldbuilding and epic sweep of the story are impressive, and the story does an incredible job of making you realize just how precious life as we know it truly is. On the other, the characterization is weak, the plot is full of contrivances, and many of the individual storylines feel underbaked (even if they contribute to a beautiful whole). I ultimately ended up giving 3.5 stars because, for all its flaws, Station Eleven is compelling enough that it still sticks with me to this day.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Infidelity, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

This story is about a flu pandemic that wipes out 90% of the population and human civilization along with it. Some main characters die of the virus. There are sequences where characters know they are infected and must chose how to spend their last days on Earth. Grief pervades every inch of this story. We see characters grieving relationships, careers, dead and dying loved ones, and the end of a world. One major character has been married three times, and every marriage has ended with him cheating on his wife with someone else.

We later read about his first wife's discovery of his infidelity from her point of view.

Another character is revealed to have cheated on her previous boyfriend. While her actions aren't *quite* portrayed in a positive light, it's also clear she feels very little remorse, and she's treated as a hero by the narrative for her other actions.

One chronically ill character, unable to travel, decides to take his own life so his brother will be free to escape the rapidly collapsing city they live in.

In the parts of the story set after the apocalypse, violence is relatively common. Several characters are killed with throwing knives, bows and arrows, guns, and other lethal weapons. There are references to sex, but no graphic sex scenes. The main villains of the post-apocalyptic timeline are a group of cultists. It is strongly implied the cult leader coerces female members of the cult to sleep with him, including minors. This is depicted as horrifying and completely wrong.

Two side characters are kidnapped by a band of cultists. One is ultimately rescued, but the other dies of wounds sustained during the kidnapping.

anwyns's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship

carolined's review against another edition

sad slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Station Eleven made me feel intensely homesick because one of the characters had a very similar childhood to me on an island in BC Canada. Because the author is also from there she evokes it very vividly, the trees, the hippies, the stairs down to the sea, building dens in the woods. However it turned out to be just a bit of backstory and the rest of the story didn't make me feel much of anything. The challenge of any post apocalyptic fiction is whether it makes the survival of the human race seem worthwhile and this cast of luvies, cultists and suspicious midwesterners did not convince me of this. Maybe the rest of the world was faring better or maybe the octopuses should have their chance at being the dominant species.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, and Violence

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Suicide

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual violence

namizaela's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

"I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth."

I don't usually read post-apocalyptic fiction, and I didn't really know much before reading this book, so I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that the whole premise of this book was exploring society after a devastating pandemic. Nevertheless, I read on, and honestly this book was not what I expected. The moments of tension were interrupted with chapters of character study, which I found a little strange. The plot seemed to go nowhere, and the climax of the book fell a little flat.
But I don't think the point of the book was to deliver a gripping plot. To me, the point seemed to be to explore what humanity really is. It's interesting to see how the individual character studies of the pre-pandemic world compare to the more sweeping generalizations about the post-apocalyptic human society. Both are done really well–in both cases, I got the sense that humans have the capacity for terrible evil as well as kindness. 
Even though this book wasn't what I was expecting at all, I loved it. The language is beautiful, and I especially loved the character of Miranda, who I think is written the best out of all of them. This was a wonderful, interesting story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Grief, Infidelity, Medical trauma, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Gun violence, and Medical content

Minor: Mental illness and Adult/minor relationship