Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I did like this book. It’s clever. It’s a unique and original take on a post-apocalyptic world. It is full of hope that shines brighter than the dark subject matter. It is deeply thought-provoking, especially after what our own humanity experienced in 2020. This book was prophetically written in 2014, years before our own pandemic.

While reading, I could not help (and I’m sure I’m not alone in this) but think of the pandemic and how, in the early days, we had no idea what the future held for us. Was this the end of us? Was this the end of our way of life, our comforts, our sense of security? Or was this a passing darkness, and one day we would hopefully come out the other side… alive and not too worse for wear?

I loved that the focus of this book was on the beauty that remained after much of humanity’s demise. The efforts to preserve the best of what was felt good, warm, and comforting. It made me think that maybe, if something like this happened to us, there could still be beauty and art and friendship. I kept bringing it back to us — we here, on this planet now — and how close I feel like we came, for a time, to this kind of ending.

This is where the book was good.

What I struggled with was the lack of characterization, the disconnection, the lack of soul. And I realize that might sound contradictory, because the overall message of the book was soulful and deep. But I didn’t feel that same depth in the characters themselves. I wanted to know them more intimately. I wanted to feel more connected to them, to understand what made them who they were, and to feel more invested in their individual stories. The ideas were there, the atmosphere was there, and the message was there, but I felt like something was missing in the emotional connection between the reader and the people at the heart of it all.

I think that’s what kept this from being a five-star read for me. I loved what the book was trying to say, and I loved the hopefulness of it, but I wish I had felt more deeply connected to the characters who were bringing that message to life.

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