Book Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Book: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Genre: contemporary/apocalyptic
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★


Here's one of those books that's been on the to-read list forever it seems. In fact I had both a physical copy and a kindle copy, each not knowing the other one existed. Ha. You know I really wanted to read it!

But it didn't happen until now when the book club voted it as our first read of our 17th year! And in the middle of a pandemic! You'd think we planned it or something.... LOL!

I had heard amazing things about this book, but I have also been scared of it. Some said it was intense and scary and disturbing. So as much as I wanted to read it, I've been hesitant. But what the heck, I just jumped in and you know... ended up really enjoying and in the end, it wasn't hard to stomach at all for me, even if we are in the middle of our own crazy pandemic.

So yeah, this is the story of what happens to a group of people who survive a pandemic. A flu that kills off, what did they say?, like 99% of the world's population. We start with a play in progress and the lead of the play dies right on stage of a heart attack. The little girl in the play witnesses the whole thing. That night, the flu hits their city and the world changes. We end up following the stories of the girl, the actor (who even though he dies in the first couple pages we find out his back story) and the dude who runs up on stage to try and save him. We also follow the stories of the actor's friend and some of his wives. (He had three.)

We bounce around in time from the present day when the plague breaks out... to 20 years in the future to what the survivors are doing. Some of them we follow what happened during those 20 years, but mostly we bounce from present to future and back again.

I really enjoyed the matter-of-fact writing. It was so easy to read and very fast paced. It did get a little intense in parts when the "bad guy" became a factor to survival.  It reminded me so much of The Walking Dead, but without the zombies. You know, where you have to deal with the crazy communities and leaders that had sprung up as a means to survival. And living and eating isn't necessarily the hard part, but staying away from the crazies is more what it's about.

Great story. Great life lessons. Great thoughts on what it means to be a family. I really enjoyed it.