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adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'd known of the HBO show but I hadn't ever watched it, and I'm glad I haven't. This book is so engaging, beautiful, and made me think so much about what makes humanity.
It's simultaneously an easy read because of how well-written it is, but also so hard to read in a post-2020 world where COVID fundamentally changed so many things. So much of the book was familiar; Mandel has a keen understanding of how we as a society react to things. Some of the standouts include a dedication to theater and the arts, a dedication to preservation, and relying on religion to the point of madness. All of these things were seen in our pandemic as well as in this book.
I cannot recommend it enough, and I will probably be thinking about it for a long time after reading.
It's simultaneously an easy read because of how well-written it is, but also so hard to read in a post-2020 world where COVID fundamentally changed so many things. So much of the book was familiar; Mandel has a keen understanding of how we as a society react to things. Some of the standouts include a dedication to theater and the arts, a dedication to preservation, and relying on religion to the point of madness. All of these things were seen in our pandemic as well as in this book.
I cannot recommend it enough, and I will probably be thinking about it for a long time after reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Death
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Rape
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I enjoyed the majority of the book, but feel like that the author struggled with the ending and combining multiple storylines into one sequence. I probably wouldn’t recommend the book, but I also wouldn’t dissuade them from reading it. The characters were believable and so was the story, I just the connections were forced.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder
Minor: Rape, Suicide
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
From the very beginning this book is totally engrossing. It’s a bit uncomfortable reading about a pandemic post Covid but the way this story is written is so masterful that it’s 100% worth reading. I can’t recommend this book strongly enough.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
When a plague strikes the world, the people who survive are left to survive as best they can.
I quite enjoyed this book. Emily St John Mandel is fast becoming my favourite author. I like the way she weaves her stories and ties things together with neat but emotional little bows. I quite liked how this was a little different than a standard post-apocalyptic book in that it was based more on relationships and less on the nitty-gritty of survival. I also liked how there was a lot of speculation about how people would reminisce and find different memories of technology to fixate on.
I quite enjoyed this book. Emily St John Mandel is fast becoming my favourite author. I like the way she weaves her stories and ties things together with neat but emotional little bows. I quite liked how this was a little different than a standard post-apocalyptic book in that it was based more on relationships and less on the nitty-gritty of survival. I also liked how there was a lot of speculation about how people would reminisce and find different memories of technology to fixate on.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Abandonment, Alcohol
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
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:
Yes
“WHAT WAS LOST IN THE COLLAPSE: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.”
I cannot believe it took me as long as it did to discover this book; once I picked it up, I devoured it over the course of about four days, and now I am completely obsessed. I absolutely adore Station Eleven-- it’s everything its premise promises and more.
The thing I enjoy most about this book is its depth, and its commitment to exploring that depth. I was introduced to Station Eleven by the HBO miniseries, and I loved it, so I thought I knew what to expect when I picked up the novel, but I didn’t. The miniseries is more straightforward and resolved than the book. It’s great, but after reading the novel, I kind of prefer the ambiguity-- how the characters are more morally gray, how their connections with each other are complicated, how nearly nothing is tied up neatly. A surprising amount of the book version of Station Eleven is left up to interpretation, and it serves the premise really well.
I particularly like Jeevan in the book as opposed to the TV show (not to say I didn’t also love him in the miniseries! He was one of my absolute favorite characters!) because he’s such a great example of the difference in storytelling between the two formats. He tries to do the right thing, or that’s what he tells himself, but we see sides of him-- especially through other characters’ points of view, like Miranda-- that don’t completely line up with that image. The same can be said for nearly all the characters in the book. They’re complex, and Station Eleven centers itself around that complexity in how it presents its plot.
The writing of the book itself is also brilliant. Mandel’s writing style is unpretentious yet insightful (a friend described it as conversational); she knows exactly where to put detail so that it never becomes overbearing or repetitive. When there is focus on imagery, it’s always for a reason, and it’s always done with the wistful beauty of post-apocalyptic retrospection-- the recurring motif of light, especially around Kirsten’s character but sometimes with others, is my favorite instance of this intentionally limited, meaningful imagery. That philosophy of relative minimalism for maximum emotional impact does wonders for its thematic power.
In a similar vein, the matter-of-fact retrospective quality of the foreshadowing in this novel is exceptional. Again, Mandel does not overload the text with heavy-handed reminders of doom; the foreshadowing (or, after the outbreak, affirmations of the destruction) is limited, packed down into infrequent single sentences for maximum poignance. Even towards the beginning of the novel, while we’re still entrenched in the last days of normalcy before the outbreak hits, the foreshadowing is never meaninglessly ominous-- take the last line of chapter two, for example. Mandel’s foreshadowing always carries with it the sadness and regret of retrospection, which is a perfect match for the plot itself.
I think I highlighted more quotes from this book than I have for any other book I’ve read in the past year, full stop. And even that can’t capture everything I love about it. The brief moments of humor caught me off-guard every time, in the best way. Chapter six is masterfully written, could be a poem on its own. Miranda’s function in the narrative and her depth as her own character is so sad yet unequivocally beautiful in its power, and I love how she has such presence over everything-- in the glass paperweight, especially, not to mention her graphic novel. The comic book’s recurring appearance as the audience is given more information to understand its connection to Miranda and Arthur is phenomenal. The recounting of Arthur’s last day-- and choosing to explore this as late into the book as it appears-- adds unmatched emotional resonance, especially with its last line. Honestly, just everything Arthur is and does is so interesting character-wise; the excerpts from the letters to V show it so well. There’s one paragraph-- “I want to do something remarkable but I don’t know what”-- that just hits so hard. “...we’re all getting older and it’s going so fast. I’m already 19.” SO good. I haven’t even written anything about Clark yet! He’s such a great foil for the other characters, in a really unexpected way!
I think overall, Station Eleven shines in its ability to communicate so much depth in so many small, unexpected places. The less surface area an object has, the higher the pressure it can apply, and exponentially so-- this book is the same. It knows exactly where to pack its punches, and doing so results in a genuinely unforgettable, endlessly interpretable narrative, with a tragic but hopeful message about regret, human connection, and storytelling. I love this book; it’s a new favorite for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Terminal illness
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Violence, Death of parent
Minor: Rape, Blood, Medical content
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'm in love with Emily St. John Mandel's writing. This is my second book by her that I've read and I plan to get through the rest of her published works this year.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Blood, Religious bigotry
Minor: Rape, Pregnancy
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
The post-pandemic context was exciting and the world building was interesting. I thought it brought up some fascinating ideas of cultism, community, and the arts. However, key observations of the implications of this new-world and the associated themes seemed to, at times, fall flat. Nonetheless an enjoyable read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Grief, Death of parent, Murder
Minor: Gun violence, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Absolutely loved the storytelling technique, world-building, and flow of descriptive language.
Note: I pictured Richard Ayoade as Jeevan, Jesse Plemons as August, Con O’Neill as Dieter, Andrew Garfield as Sayid, Andre Michaan very faintly as Clark, and a wishy-washy mix of Tom Hiddleston/Brian Cox as Arthur.
Note: I pictured Richard Ayoade as Jeevan, Jesse Plemons as August, Con O’Neill as Dieter, Andrew Garfield as Sayid, Andre Michaan very faintly as Clark, and a wishy-washy mix of Tom Hiddleston/Brian Cox as Arthur.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Torture, Trafficking, Kidnapping, War
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Slavery, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Abandonment
Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Cannibalism, Death of parent
I added lots of content warnings for this book, but as a pretty sensitive person, I can honestly say I didn’t find this book upsetting— moreso realistic in an apocalyptic context. It touches on many serious topics but it does so in a justified and non-shocking way.