Reviews with content warning for Death - Station Eleven

I read this on Easter weekend, a break from my cultural industries masters program, this somehow made more invested in my program. As a museum practitioner the scenes at the Museum of Civilization moved me so much. I binge read it from Good Friday to Black Saturday 2024 and somehow, as a lapsed Catholic, the timing felt right.

Beautiful uncompromising writing with moments that gave me goosebumps. Reading this in 2024, year 4 post COVID-19 was a wild ride, and I'm glad I waited till now to read it. It also made me miss home, family, and the light and heat of my country.

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larissakoch's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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chersonese's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.75

I really enjoyed this book, and it's made me realise that i'm much more a fan of multiple POVs in fiction that I first thought. It's something that you don't see too often, it's tricky to get a sprawling cast of characters right, easier to focus on one POV and do it well. In fact it's been said, somewhere by someone, that the optimal range of characters in any given scene that a person can keep track of is around seven. This book not only writes each different POV well, it shows you the ways in which you can play with a cast in scenes and expands on them in all the best ways.

Calling this a post-apocalyptic novel is going to mislead people, because while yes that is true I think it gives reader's certain expectations and leads them looking for an overarching plot, an obstacle to defeat, a villain. The book has those elements but they're not the main focus, this is a character-driven book, and subsequently the characters are driving you, the reader, to keep turning the page. I found myself several times going to a new chapter, seeing who's POV it was and being excited to hear more from a character we hadn't touched on in a few chapters. And I will admit I found myself wanting more of the characters, but (and I want to stress this) not because I feel they were not fleshed out in the writing, I wanted more of these characters because of how fleshed out they were.
I'm not normally in the business of writing long reviews, so i'll leave it with this. This book is about people, if you don't enjoy hearing about their everyday struggles, their seemingly generic highs and lows, their lives. If what you want is a fantastical adventure this book may leave you wanting, but I hope you'll read it anyway.

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podanotherjessi's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

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

3.75

I liked it! I think the story itself is told in this really neat way where it avoids a lot of (imo) more interesting narrative, or at least more typical pandemic/post apocalyptic stories - like the actual fall of civilization, or how society started to revive - and the result is this kind of negative space image that I really like. The pandemic itself is done in a way that settles into the uncanny valley. It's got a lot of elements of how that played out in real life, but it's just a little off in a way that makes it more extreme but not quite believable, but in a way that I found enjoyable if off-putting.

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curriedpeas's review

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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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berodatheelf's review against another edition

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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.

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lay_kone's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

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