Reviews with content warning for Death - Station Eleven

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

444 reviews

krispyyk's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous funny reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Lots of stuff going on under the same theme - what makes life meaningful

Content Warnings

lcyarnall1's review against another edition

5.0

dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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: No

Content Warnings

rainbowarpaint's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

daniellekat's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Loveable characters: Complicated

I'm kind of shocked by how much I enjoyed this. I would have never picked this up if it wasn't on the 2023 Canada Reads shortlist. I had no idea what to expect, and knowing that the tagged genres were not my thing, I expected to hate this. BUT WOW. I can't exactly pinpoint what I loved, but this was so good. The writing was excellent, thought-provoking and poetic without being pretentious. I am a sucker for anyone who writes about Toronto well, and Mandel did not disappoint. I liked the weaving timelines and how all the main characters fit together, but I thought there were too many auxiliary characters to keep track of. I also wasn't a fan of the book's organization, the various section titles were unnecessary. I think there is definitely a different experience reading this in the post-COVID19 era and I wonder if I would have enjoyed this as much, had I read it pre-2020.

Content Warnings

himpersonal's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This is the third book by this author I have read, and I’ve loved all three of them. She tells stories that are truly unique. No template or formula but simply well woven stories of multiple (dis)connected lives. And just when I was thinking this would be a great script, I found out it was actually made into a TV series. I must add that to my watch list!

Update a little after a year later: On days I work from home, I usually have a couple of hours of mindless work that I have to do, and I usually turn on the TV for a short while. Today, I decided to check out the TV series based on the book. Very large digressions! I'm on the third episode (last for the day), and so far, I'm enjoying the show. The books sense of mystery is missing though, and I think the book is better in this case, for that reason.

Content Warnings

parfait52's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

It took me several months to get through this book, which is saying something because it's fairly short. Every time I picked it up, I was interested enough. Once I put it down, though, I didn't feel the need to pick it back up. This book doesn't really have a plot so much as it has a story. And once you figure out how the story is forming and the author is doing, it's very easy to know where it's going to go. At times, I found the writing to be beautiful and profound. I found the concept fascinating, but the execution was stifling at points. There were several parts of the book that I personally found very boring and wanted to get past immediately. Overall, not a bad read. There are just books I've enjoyed more.

Content Warnings

bookboi56's review against another edition

2.5

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really wanted to enjoy this book, having heard good things about it for a long while. But whilst the premise is very interesting, and the opening chapters are very intriguing given their close resemblance to the COVID-19 outbreak, I found the rest of the story a trudge to get through.

Maybe 20% of the book unfolds with the present characters in mind. The rest constantly flips back and forth between any one of about 12 characters all vaguely related to each other at greater and greater tangents, whilst moving from present to past in short fitful chapters.

As someone who is not great with names, having only a quick description for each person is not sufficient to keep up with a dozen similarly traumatised apocalypse survivors. This may be an effect of listening to the book rather than reading it. But for the last 2 thirds I found myself just going along and trying to enjoy what I was hearing with no context as to who anyone was.

Content Warnings

reggiethebird's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I very much preferred this to Sea of Tranquility. Those first 30 or so pages are a tough read, and hit a little too close to home (the toilet paper line got me [ I'm very glad I read this after covid]), but the rest is nicer. Jumps around the timeline a ton, but once you know to expect it it works beautifully.

Content Warnings