A review by jhbandcats
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow, what an extraordinary novel. Time travel novels seem really hard to do without glaring anomalies in the timeline. I’m in awe of people who even try to come up with such complex stories. (The Time Traveler’s Wife is a successful one.)

The feel of the book is like Mandel’s Station Eleven - so many tiny revelations of connection and meaning. The format is like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas where the first and last sections are the same story, the second and next-to-last are the same story, and so on, finally meeting in the middle. It’s a fascinating way to tell a tale - there are so many subtle intricacies. 

I enjoyed Mandel’s sardonic humor in her references to what clearly had been her own experience: being queried at readings in 2020-2021 about her prescient pandemic storyline in Station Eleven, her bewilderment that her first books passed under the radar till Station Eleven hit it big and she was suddenly famous. 

I think this book is just fabulous. It’s a beautiful story about humanity across the centuries. 
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