Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

73 reviews

curriedpeas's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5


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fernash's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0


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rmkg's review against another edition

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reflective
My kind of book--a tapestry of characters, a sprinkling of sci-fi, reflections on how we use art to make meaning in our lives. Really lovely stuff. Left me very grateful for modern conveniences.

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pacifickat's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 *Long Review Ahead...Reader Be Warned*

 This book sits between genres: a mix of end-of-the-world sci-fi, literary fiction, and an odd collection of character-driven stories around a few pivotal events, told and re-told from a variety of perspectives. This is a book of frame narratives, questioning which stories and moments define other stories and moments in meaningful ways. It is structured more like a network of coral making up a reef rather than a linear A-to-B journey.

A lot of disappointed reviewers seemed to want this book to be more than it was, the plot to follow a traditional post-apocalyptic road narrative, with characters fighting for survival in a dystopian landscape punctuated by violent encounters. However, Mandel seems to resist these expected devices, focusing instead on how humans are connected across time and space, nature and technology, and generations. The pandemic in this story demarcates a divide between past and present, a clear before and after. But, is existence more than our perceived notion of time and oir relationship to pivotal moments in history? Does a web of interconnectivity carry through all existence even when we cannot perceive it, even when the world seemingly ends? What is this reality we’re living in? Is it patterned beforehand, or only when looked at it in retrospect, like a forest ecosystem growing organically together? Can meaning and beauty miraculously arise out of mundanity and messiness? Is being briefly and beautifully alive and part of a cosmic whole enough of a miracle in itself? Do we make stories, or do the stories make us? What exists because of us, and what exists outside of us?

It’s complicated.
This story dodges traditional plot structure, and instead provides nonchronological glimpses of the lives of individuals trying to find the answer to what can make existence sufficient, whether it be love, career, art, travel, memory, playing a part, rescuing others, religious fanaticism, joining a cause, controlling a narrative, collecting objects, or collecting stories. I will outline a couple major themes I found compelling, but I think this book by nature opens up a Pandora’s box of possibly reader takeaways. 
 

1. “Survival is insufficient” but existence is beautiful, sometimes breathtakingly so. 

 The interwoven storylines are occasionally punctuated by rhapsodic descriptions of moonlight on water, flowers and trees, slant sunlight, an impossibly blue sky, a paperweight that looks like trapped storm clouds, an illustration of the undersea. Likewise, technological wonders such as the internet, air travel, electric lights, refrigeration, television, and worldwide shipping networks go underappreciated before the flu, yet supply curious wonder in a post-pandemic world filled with the artifacts of their once-existence. Generally, it is these non-human elements which supply miraculous beauty and wonder in spite of the mundanity and distraction of human life, the messiness of human behavior, the horror of human violence.

2. There is an interconnected, overlapping web of individuals and events across time and realities – linking pre-pandemic lives to the post-pandemic world, and a graphic novel storyline that bleeds into both. 

Everything is interconnected, the natural world and human-operated technologies, yet these marvelous (and tenuous) webs exist under the radar of most. The reader has the privilege to be the one who can see how everything touches, even as those living within the connections are unable to perceive them, except on rare occasions when the curtain of awareness is drawn upward. 

This seeming magic encircles and envelops conscious existence, but goes unnoticed by the humans navigating the complexities of the pre-pandemic modern world, or fighting to survive in post-pandemic reality. A repeated element of looking upward to the sky when faced with death carries throughout, perhaps searching for sufficient meaning or beauty when survival is not guaranteed and everything finally falls still. Is this akin to the sublime moment the actress dissolves into Titania on stage, her stained wedding gown becoming the adornment of a magical fairy queen?

3. The idea that “everything happens for a reason” is not the same as “everything is connected" or "the miracle of existence somehow adds up to more than the sum of its parts.” 

One idea impoverishes, the other gives way to impossible wonder. One seeks to explain individual experiences, the other accepts the impossibility of grasping all the strands, and revels in the piece of reality we get to live within, and sometimes consciously perceive. The idea that “everything happens for a reason” runs against the grain of this story. 
This assumption leads to a mother-son combo having excuses for regrettable behaviors, an inability to cope with present realities, benign and malicious expressions of naivete, disconnection from others due to a sense of being “chosen” or set apart from the rest for a separate purpose, and a disturbing god complex. It’s self-important, it’s controlling, and ultimately it flies in the face of the interconnectedness and beauty the reader glimpses through the cracks in each narrative.
 

4. Suggestions of alternate realities and universes. 

A conversation about physics and a multiverse, a few mentions of ghosts and the dead following the living, and a nonlinear storyline seem to suggest that time is not as concrete as the reader and the characters might assume. What do these mean in terms of possibilities? How much are we unable to perceive? Is the web that connects existence unbound by time? Is any of this ultimately knowable? I hope her other related novels tap into this a bit more. 

I'm giving this one 4 stars because I am genuinely still thinking about it and probably will continue to mull over the story for quite a while. One star down because at points the story did drag and could be a bit frustrating (where are my troupe of actors and why am I hearing about this dead actor and his ex-wives again?). All in all, a solid read. 


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ivelisse's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This novel unraveled and tied together in such a satisfying and interesting manner. There is an elegance to what avenues were fleshed out and those that were left with unknown outcomes, mirroring the realities of the reality of the world of Station Eleven.

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daniellekat's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

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. 

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mishellsch's review

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adventurous dark hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I see how this novel and the miniseries about a deadly flu and the resulting dystopia flew under the radar while we were experiencing our own pandemic.

 Now to finish the last few episodes of the miniseries. The miniseries adjusted some of the characters' storylines to help format the plot for the screen. So far, I don't mind the changes.

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paularize's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective

5.0


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hmogie's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25


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cueba's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

Oh this is a tough one! Personally, I liked it. But you will definitely not like it if you expect this as a dystopian novel with its usual suspense and shebangs. It's calmer than that and the book is more of a slice-of-life which happens to be set in a post-apocalyptic world. Don't expect the book to propose new ideas in the dystopia genre

Very minimal spoiler that details on the antagonist:
The Prophet is not that vital in the plot and it's not really intended to. Don't expect a suspenseful chase of sorts. He's nicely written though! I love the approach on the identity reveal.

The prose is so damn good but it barely has any plot. Some main characters also have not much of personality. Very minimal spoiler that details on the protagonists:
Kirsten (the main protag and the actress) is not that distinct but her narration is nice. I liked Miranda and Clark (since they are arguably the most fleshed-out characters). There's also Jeevan but hmm... there's a big time-skip from pre to post so he's a bit wonky and didn't really mattered—though, his pre-apocalyptic life is nicely written.


On to the prose: it's good. Like so-many-highlights-good. The tone is consistent (that is: slow) and I loved how it's built up—this is a book that seems planned from start to finish. I personally liked how the Prophet is handled but it might not be enough for others. The ending is heartwarming and I think it's such a fitting end! Solid read, and I'll definitely check out the author's other books! :)

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