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A review by jillgoober
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The main reason this book is getting 4.5 stars instead of 5 is because I found it hard to get into at first. However, this novel offers a profound look at what's important in life, i.e. what would be important to us if life as we knew it ceased to exist. Also, the fact that this was written 6+ years before the Covid-19 pandemic rocked our world is eerie.
It's been twenty years since the Georgia Flu wiped out about 99% of the human population. There are small villages that have come together and live out of old motels, stores, and other buildings. There is no electricity, running water, or gas for vehicles. People have learned to live off the land. The book centers around a traveling group of musicians and actors called The Symphony. The travel around southern Canada and the northern U.S. and perform music and Shakespeare plays. Our main antagonist is a man who calls himself "The Prophet;" he and his followers travel to various villages and take what they want by force (including young wives) because they feel they are the chosen ones by God to have survived the flu.
The book also includes flashbacks at various times, as early as decades before the pandemic, when the pandemic first hit, and the years since then. The most intriguing part of this book was how you eventually figure out how each of our main characters were connected in some way before the pandemic started.
As aforementioned, this book really makes you think about what would be most important to you in a situation like this. The characters hold on to the strangest objects like a paperweight, for example, just because they have a vague memory about it from before the pandemic. This novel also made me think about how much worse Covid could've been for us.
It's been twenty years since the Georgia Flu wiped out about 99% of the human population. There are small villages that have come together and live out of old motels, stores, and other buildings. There is no electricity, running water, or gas for vehicles. People have learned to live off the land. The book centers around a traveling group of musicians and actors called The Symphony. The travel around southern Canada and the northern U.S. and perform music and Shakespeare plays. Our main antagonist is a man who calls himself "The Prophet;" he and his followers travel to various villages and take what they want by force (including young wives) because they feel they are the chosen ones by God to have survived the flu.
The book also includes flashbacks at various times, as early as decades before the pandemic, when the pandemic first hit, and the years since then. The most intriguing part of this book was how you eventually figure out how each of our main characters were connected in some way before the pandemic started.
As aforementioned, this book really makes you think about what would be most important to you in a situation like this. The characters hold on to the strangest objects like a paperweight, for example, just because they have a vague memory about it from before the pandemic. This novel also made me think about how much worse Covid could've been for us.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Religious bigotry, Gun violence, and Death
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship