Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

53 reviews

berodatheelf's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

A rich dystopian novel that focuses on several characters pre and post pandemic that is lyrically written. It was an interesting deep dive into the psyche of humans and humanity itself.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

pacifickat's review

Go to review page

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. 


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

fkshg8465's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

quinnyquinnquinn's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

nicolescottwv's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

oriana095's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

amberelizabeth7's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense 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? It's complicated

4.75

Mainly reviewing to preserve the quote I’d bookmarked but have to return the library book! 

This was a recommendation and while slightly slow to get into, turned out magnificently and I already kind of want to reread for stuff I likely missed.

I would say defo check trigger warnings, and don’t read if it’s too soon to read vividly your worst fears for how the recent pandemic could’ve gone….

“I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them they want to do something different but that’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped. Dan’s like that.” …. “….high functioning sleepwalkers, essentially” … “… I think people like him think work is supposed to be drudgery punctuated by very occasional moments of happiness, but when I say happiness, I mostly mean distraction. You know what I mean?”

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

tremayna's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

the_tridentarii's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

spineofthesaurus's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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? Yes

4.25


Expand filter menu Content Warnings