Reviews Without Spoilers is a series in which I review the books I've read without giving away any more than the inside cover plot summary would.
Before I started reading it, I only knew two things about this book:
1. I thought the cover was absolutely stunning.
2. It seemed like everyone was talking about it.
Now that I've finished it, I know one more thing:
3. Everyone should be talking about it.
Briefly, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is about the world before and after a devastating flu epidemic that brings civilization as we know it to an end. (As a note: Although it's about the flu, I wouldn't say this book is gory at all, so if you're squeamish like me, you'll still be okay.)
As the story unfolds, we follow the lives of Arthur Leander, an actor who dies the night the pandemic starts, and those associated with him. After Arthur's death, Kirsten (a child actor who sees Arthur die on stage, then survives the flu) journeys around the Great Lakes with a band of musicians and actors who comprise the Traveling Symphony. They perform Shakespeare and musical concerts for the settlements that remain in the "new world." (If we're being honest, I first picked up this book for the beautiful cover, but I finally started reading it for the Shakespeare.)
The book's synopsis makes it sound like Kirsten is the main character, but I would argue that it's actually Arthur himself. He is the string that connects every other character, in ways that are both expected and striking. More than any other character, Arthur is the one I feel for in every chapter, even though he lives on only as a legacy after the outbreak. Bigger than just a life, the way he is remembered takes center stage, along with the memory of what the world itself was like when he lived.
This book kept me awake at night, wondering, dreading what life would be like on the other side of such an epidemic. Not only is there death and deterioration, as you would expect from such a world-altering, universal sickness, but there is so much else that's lost. The inside cover of my edition asks "What would you miss?" and I've been thinking a lot about that question since the first pages of this novel.
Because of that, I was strangely dreading the end of the book. As a reader, when I find a book I love, I think it's normal to feel sad as you see the pages that remain dwindle. But with this, it felt different. I was almost afraid of how it would end. There was no way to know whether it would be a happy ending or yet more devastation. Without giving anything away, what I will tell you is that I was immensely satisfied by the final pages. I've never felt relieved to finish a book before, but I was with Station Eleven - not because it was a bad book. On the contrary, I liked this story despite myself. I normally struggle to deal with books that involve so much death, especially throughout the course of the whole novel. But this one had such intriguing characters who lived such very different lives. I couldn't help but be drawn back to reading it every day.
The crippling pain and simultaneous beauty of hope is the centerpiece of Station Eleven. In this post-apocalyptic world, there's a constant battle between whether hope itself is even worth the struggle to keep it. But, in the same breath, there is the repeated mantra that "survival is inefficient."
Overall, I struggled excessively with the content of this book, but it was also gorgeous. I found it a bit difficult to follow some of the run-on-sentence style of the writing, and I found the many jumps through time, some within the same chapters, to sometimes be confusing, though often necessary. For these reasons, I give Station Eleven 4/5 stars.
Book: Station Eleven
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Publisher: Vintage Books (Penguin Random House)
Release Date: September 2014
Genre: apocalyptic sci-fi
Length: 333 pages, 10 hrs 40 mins in audiobook format
Setting: Not too distant future, North America
Before I started reading it, I only knew two things about this book:
1. I thought the cover was absolutely stunning.
2. It seemed like everyone was talking about it.
Now that I've finished it, I know one more thing:
3. Everyone should be talking about it.
Briefly, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is about the world before and after a devastating flu epidemic that brings civilization as we know it to an end. (As a note: Although it's about the flu, I wouldn't say this book is gory at all, so if you're squeamish like me, you'll still be okay.)
As the story unfolds, we follow the lives of Arthur Leander, an actor who dies the night the pandemic starts, and those associated with him. After Arthur's death, Kirsten (a child actor who sees Arthur die on stage, then survives the flu) journeys around the Great Lakes with a band of musicians and actors who comprise the Traveling Symphony. They perform Shakespeare and musical concerts for the settlements that remain in the "new world." (If we're being honest, I first picked up this book for the beautiful cover, but I finally started reading it for the Shakespeare.)
The book's synopsis makes it sound like Kirsten is the main character, but I would argue that it's actually Arthur himself. He is the string that connects every other character, in ways that are both expected and striking. More than any other character, Arthur is the one I feel for in every chapter, even though he lives on only as a legacy after the outbreak. Bigger than just a life, the way he is remembered takes center stage, along with the memory of what the world itself was like when he lived.
This book kept me awake at night, wondering, dreading what life would be like on the other side of such an epidemic. Not only is there death and deterioration, as you would expect from such a world-altering, universal sickness, but there is so much else that's lost. The inside cover of my edition asks "What would you miss?" and I've been thinking a lot about that question since the first pages of this novel.
Because of that, I was strangely dreading the end of the book. As a reader, when I find a book I love, I think it's normal to feel sad as you see the pages that remain dwindle. But with this, it felt different. I was almost afraid of how it would end. There was no way to know whether it would be a happy ending or yet more devastation. Without giving anything away, what I will tell you is that I was immensely satisfied by the final pages. I've never felt relieved to finish a book before, but I was with Station Eleven - not because it was a bad book. On the contrary, I liked this story despite myself. I normally struggle to deal with books that involve so much death, especially throughout the course of the whole novel. But this one had such intriguing characters who lived such very different lives. I couldn't help but be drawn back to reading it every day.
The crippling pain and simultaneous beauty of hope is the centerpiece of Station Eleven. In this post-apocalyptic world, there's a constant battle between whether hope itself is even worth the struggle to keep it. But, in the same breath, there is the repeated mantra that "survival is inefficient."
Overall, I struggled excessively with the content of this book, but it was also gorgeous. I found it a bit difficult to follow some of the run-on-sentence style of the writing, and I found the many jumps through time, some within the same chapters, to sometimes be confusing, though often necessary. For these reasons, I give Station Eleven 4/5 stars.
Book: Station Eleven
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Publisher: Vintage Books (Penguin Random House)
Release Date: September 2014
Genre: apocalyptic sci-fi
Length: 333 pages, 10 hrs 40 mins in audiobook format
Setting: Not too distant future, North America
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