Station Eleven
By Emily St. John Mandel
- Release Date: 2014-09-09
- Genre: Literary Fiction
Description
This Anniversary Edition of Station Eleven, a finalist for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of the Twenty-First Century by the New York Times, celebrates ten years of this now iconic novel with a new color illustration and a guide to “The Mandelverse”
A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
It is fifteen years after a flu pandemic wiped out most of the world's population. Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony, a small troupe moving over the gutted landscape, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. But when they arrive in the outpost of St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the disaster brought everyone here, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty, telling a story about the relationships that sustain us.
Reviews
Great page turner
4By MitchfosInteresting book, good character development makes this book an excellent read.Bittersweet but beautiful
5By BethJamisonVery well written and also so tragic and melancholy but characters are truly amazingHumane but unrealistic
3By F1-2-AAnyone who takes on a post-apocalyptic story should vet their work by a soldier or veteran. While it’s a great premise and beautifully written, there were too many inaccurate or unbelievable bits for me to buy into the story overall.Fantastic
5By girlgutsBeautifully woven story of lives in the before and the after. This is the first book I’ve read by this author. They’ve got a fan for life.Good story.
3By CBLandsI had a hard time following the characters going in and out of flashbacks, or was it all just mixed up? Not the most enjoyable book I’ve ever read. The concept was pretty cool, but I got lost in the bouncing around timelines. I’m sure it is a great book. Just not for me. Maybe if I read it again I’ll understand it better.Jeez…
5By HappyToReadAllDayThis book was written in 2014…. 5 years before Covid, 5 years before this almost became reality…,A Masterpiece
5By BobgriffqqwwerCame looking for a deep dive on a pandemic, and was swept away instead by one of the most brilliantly woven tapestries of characters and attention to detail that I’ve ever experienced. Read it in two days, barely able to stop. Haunting. Beautiful. And as someone who is prone to reading male authors the mind behind this story opened my eyes to a different way of experiencing the world.Compelling read with a masterful story structure.
5By filmguyryanThis novel unravels an incredible story of a global pandemic told through the experiences of a handful of unique perspectives. The characters are compelling, the narrative engaging. What really stands about Station Eleven however is the masterful way in which Emily St. John Mandel weaves the plot twists into the fabric of the book with precision. The backstories and character reveals happen in a way that jumps back and forth through time. In other literature this can seem gimmicky or forced. For Station Eleven it happens in such a beautiful way so as to be seamless. These jumps through time feel perfect. Clues and context pieces are paced and portioned out at just the right moment so that it ties seamlessly into the present day events effortlessly. Truly this is the best example of this storytelling that I’ve seen.Quite good, but very different from the Max miniseries
5By jk001The book starts out much slower than the TV miniseries. It also takes a lot longer to get into what happened during the flu pandemic than the TV miniseries does. However, it takes full advantage of the strength of its medium, a novel. That is in terms of pacing characters and ending which in someways is much more hopeful than the TV miniseries. TV miniseries takes full advantage of it’s medium TV especially with newscasts about the dying world. In short, both the novel and the TV miniseries are two versions of the same story and they’re both good in their own ways. If you saw the TV miniseries, I’d recommend reading the novel and vice versa.Searching for Belonging
4By Richard BakareEmily St. John Mandel is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Her style of science fiction is so grounded in the human experience of the setting and doesn’t get lost in the scene setting that happens to some authors. In this one we get a deeply personal view of what the end looks like and potential rebirth of civilization. Even with that bleak premise Mandel pushes us to hope against hope. Developing characters and plot lines that lure you in deeper and deeper. Through these protagonists and antagonists we see how you can lose parts of yourself in order to survive. Mandel prompts us to think of where we go for hope when the foundations of what we understand crumble? The answer I took away lies in the power of community to create belonging. That conclusion is portrayed to us through clever use of time shifting and perspective swapping that feels like a jigsaw puzzle coming together. Mandel also subtly shows us how the creations we put out create permanence even if their meanings change. Much like her own marvelous books.Fantastic
5By zdazzleI’m not a great writer but all I need to say is read it and you won’t be disappointed.What a story!
5By jillhardy2Good thing COVID didn’t hit us like the virus in this story! Very well-written. The story could definitely be a series…Great characters and storyline
5By VTbikeThis book caught me completely. Not the happiest story but one on the best in a long time.Super Good❗
5By CLHubbardThis story is very very very good. O kept thinking while I read, “Wow... What If?”Loved it
5By AdMageddon_EThere’s something in the prosody that feels like home.Station Eleven
2By 132 winnUsually I enjoy a book more than the movie or series but in this instance I feel the series was more enjoyable than the book. If I have question or need more info I read the book but in this instance they were nothing alike.Started off good…
1By HlrwSo the sample pages were pretty interesting. It seemed like after that everything went down hill. Don’t waste your $$$Description doesn’t do it justice
5By Alg...Yes, it’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but it’s soooo much more. Great characters, great story, couldn’t put it down.Well-crafted, entertaining read, particularly in these Covid times.
5By LBtotheZRecommended.
