Station Eleven

author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Wayne
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/15
date added: 2015/07/15
shelves: sword-and-laser
review:
'Station Eleven' has been touted as a literary post-apocalyptic novel. It's received a lot of good press and reviews. I felt like it hit strong, then slowly trailed off. I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. Maybe I was overhyped going in.

The book starts with the death of an actor, Arthur Leander, on stage during King Lear. Shortly afterward, a flu strain wipes out most of the people on the planet. We see the events, past and present through people connected to the actor. I liked that aspect of the book. While much of the book takes place in the future with a travelling orchestra/Shakespeare troupe, I found myself enjoying the flashbacks to the present. The apocalypse offered some beautiful glimpses of what was lost, but a lot of it kind of felt like things I've read before elsewhere. How many maniacal people will there really be in an apocalypse, where people are just trying to figure out how to survive? At this point, it feels a little overdone, even if it has an interesting, albeit obvious, reveal.

So, I would recommend any of the Margaret Atwood MaddAddam titles or The Handmaid's Tale. I would recommend David Brin's The Postman, which is a book that I need to reread soon for the 4th or 5th time. This was good, but I've read better, more affecting novels.


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