Reviews

Estación Once by Emily St. John Mandel

Only show reviews with written explanations

eduardo_washington's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

4.25

kjbehnke584's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

bethaniekay's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

First reading (2015):

I love books that make me think and teach me something new. This one was a very interesting story -- complex, compelling. It's a tangled web, to be sure - many different characters and locations, and numerous jumps back and forth in time (which got a little confusing, but didn't detract from the story that much). I devoured the story in 3 days and it definitely left me wondering -- what would I do if I were put in these situations? What would the world be like? Would I be able to find the silver lining so that I, too, were able to seek more than just survival?

Definitely an interesting book. I'll be recommending this to those who I think would enjoy it.

******************
Second reading (2021):

It's funny how sometimes when you read a book again, you can have a completely different opinion of it (for good or bad). In this case, I didn't enjoy this book as much the second time around.

This time, I was annoyed by the extraneous characters that didn't really seem to add much to the story. For example, what was Jeevan's purpose, other than to tie Arthur and Miranda together in another random way? The whole part about what he did in the immediate aftermath of the virus (stocking supplies, sealing up the apartment, etc.) would've been more interesting if it was Kirsten's brother, so we could've actually learned what happened with her, in terms of what happened to her parents, and the Year One that she doesn't remember. And what was the point of learning about Arthur's friend Victoria? And come to think of it, what was the point in learning about all of the various wives Arthur had? He was boring and unlikeable anyway, so other than the pivotal (?) act of him dying on stage, I'm not sure he even needed to be in the story at all. The same with the Traveling Symphony. It seemed like an interesting concept, but it was so poorly fleshed out, it was almost irrelevant. The only pieces of the story that were remotely interesting were Miranda and her comic project, and Clark and his museum project. I also really wanted to know more about the community that developed in the airport and how they survived/lived there, but it was only barely touched on.

The other thing that really bothered me this time was the disconnect with the resources and environment the characters lived in after the fall of civilization. First of all, it's completely impractical that a traveling troupe living in tents would spend all their time in the Great Lakes region. They would freeze, and wouldn't find enough to eat. More logically, they would've migrated farther south. Second of all, I find it highly unlikely that they would only come across tiny settlements of 5-10 people. In reality, people would've likely banded together to form communities, where skills and services could be shared, goods could be traded, relationships developed, and safety/protection more easily achieved. People would likely have grown crops, bred livestock, and even figured out how to engineer things like ovens, running water, and even electricity. It's not like all the knowledge had disappeared with the virus. Third of all, it seems very unlikely that items such as shoes, clothing, bedding, utensils, tools, would be so scarce. With only 3 million people left in the U.S., that means all the items that the 300 million who died left behind would be up for grabs. Even weapons and ammunition would be plentiful (we're talking about the U.S., here), as long as they weren't locked up in the abandoned homes or stores. There would also be literally millions of abandoned homes, hotels, large buildings, etc., that people could live in. Why in the world would they choose to live in a gas station instead? And why are books such a rare commodity? Unless people used all of them in campfires, there's no reason to think that the entire country's worth of libraries, book stores, museums, and homes wouldn't still have books. With those books, survivors could have learned how to build things, breed things, grow things, cook things, heal things. Garden centers, feed stores, Wal-Marts, etc. would have seeds and tools and instruction books on how to grow food/vegetables. I could be over-simplifying it all, but it just struck me as odd this time how primitively people were living, when they are literally surrounded by the leftover basic infrastructure and supplies of 99% of the country.

Overall, I still enjoyed the book -- but much less this time, so I'm lowering my rating a bit.