A review by mmccombs
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

You ever get like 3 chapters into a book and know that it will forever be on your mind from here on out? Everything about this is what I love about reading. The plot was meandery and beautiful, the characters were interconnected in unexpected ways, and the pandemic was obviously important to the story but was more of a springboard for exploration of humanity than being just an “apocalyptic” story. It feels kind of miraculous to have read this after an actual pandemic  (not miraculous in a positive way, just in a “time is a circle” kind of way), the layers of Shakespeare’s plague context, this imagining of a fictional pandemic, and our experience living through one all came together to create even more meaning than was probably originally intended. I don’t think I can say anything more eloquent that hasn’t already been said by more adept reviewers, but I finished this book feeling stunned in the best way.
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