Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Station Eleven

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

56 reviews

bookishplantmom's review

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I was curious about this book after reading How High We Go in The Dark - I had heard they were similar. And in some ways they are but in many they are quite different. This is also a pandemic story told in a series of vignettes from a range of characters lives across a period of time. Somehow this story feels particularly surreal despite it being closer to reality than HHWGITD. It reminded me more of Butler’s Parable of The Sower actually. It isn’t nearly as good in my opinion but it does take an unflinching look at some of the worst parts of humanity while also thinking through the meaning of community and civilization. The writing was not particularly impactful to me but I did enjoy how the various vignettes fit together. None of the characters stood out to me or clicked for me. Reading this I found myself reflecting a lot about how things *actually* are going two years into a pandemic vs how the author imagined it might go. A fascinating experience reading this now.

Content Warnings

liliaweber's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

The threads of different lives are woven together across different eras - in a non-chronological arrangement of chapters that somehow flows beautifully, rhythmically, like a song.

This book is basically a meditation on a quote from Star Trek, which is a mantra often repeated by the characters themselves: "survival is insufficient." It's about why the human need to create art and tell stories is worth braving the danger of an unpredictable post-apocalyptic world. It's also about the choice to let go of what we've lost vs the drive to rebuild it, or how to balance both. I ugly cried more than once.

Three of the main characters are sympathetic, compelling, interesting. If there's any flaw in this book it's that the one character that glues the others together - the first character mentioned in the opening line - is self-centered, boring to read about, and doesn't grow. Defeating the villain is only a small sliver of the story; the main goals of the main characters are to survive a post-apocalyptic world, to uncover missing truth, and to create something worth surviving for.

Content Warnings

lemonflower's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

readerette's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective fast-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

5.0

I could not put this down. I was immersed. I've never experienced an apocalyptic story that came so close to feeling real--how things seem like they would really go if something world-ending came to pass. Aside from Part 7 being too long and unfocused for my taste, I loved it all: the writing, the characters, the relationships, the new world that came to be, the little things people remembered or cherished... Just beautiful. She's captured the little world within a world that each of us builds by way of the people we are connected to; the ones we know our whole lives and the ones we meet indirectly through their art or work or or mutual friends; the ones we meet early and the ones we meet later; the ones we lose for a while and the ones we lose forever; the ones who were part of some milestone and the ones who were a constant.

Content Warnings