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

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

Reading this book is emotional. Three years ago, I would have dismissed it as far-fetched, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, doomsday-like, etc. but now, I am uncomfortably aware that this book could have happened. August says: "...given an infinite number of parallel universes, there had to be one where there had been no pandemic and he'd grown up to be a physicist as planned, or one where there had been a pandemic but the virus had had a subtly different genetic structure, some miniscule variance that rendered it survivable." In another universe, I am dead. In another universe, my ears aren't rubbed raw by mask strings at the end of the day. In another universe, everyone I love is dead. My reading notes say that it is very strange I am reading this book after having spent the afternoon watching Interstellar, and I also can't stop thinking that if this book happened to us, and I survived, I would never be able to be vegetarian again. 

We traveled so far and your friendship meant everything. It was very difficult, but there were moments of beauty. Everything ends. I am not afraid. 

Everyone will come away from this book with different understandings. For me, it is about grief, art, and the last people who died. 
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