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A review by chrissie_whitley
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
5.0
Station Eleven is an intriguing take on the oft-used theme of dystopia. With a back and forth narrative, before (and during) the pandemic and after, Mandel takes us through a variety of characters and narrators—all intertwined and connected to a comic book/graphic novel series entitled Station Eleven.
Beautifully meandering, thoughtful, and delicate, Station Eleven is chockfull of ache, love, and life. With the lyrical quality atypical of a post-apocalyptic novel, Mandel breathes an incredible amount of spirit and vivacity into her characters, and the ebbing and flowing of their lives is keenly felt.
Her ability to stretch the timeline back like a taut rubber band, just far enough to not break momentum, and then to snap it back to the present is enviable. I never felt as though she spent too much time building up everyone's past lives, and I never felt cheated when it was time for someone else to narrate. The rotation of narrators was smoothly done and I found myself content regardless of whose hands she saw fit to place me in.
I love that there is no grand storyline—there is simplicity, there is complexity, but there is no plot that only resides within the walls of science fiction. There are no good guys or bad guys...there are people—all wrapped up in their usual layers of both good and bad and everything in between. Underneath it all, there is the desire to live.
Audiobook version, narrated by [a:Kirsten Potter|2077160|Kirsten Potter|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]: To read a beautiful novel and do it justice is not an easy feat. Ms. Potter has a voice that is both warm and crisp, and it was a joy to listen to her soothing voice reading these fantastically written words.
Beautifully meandering, thoughtful, and delicate, Station Eleven is chockfull of ache, love, and life. With the lyrical quality atypical of a post-apocalyptic novel, Mandel breathes an incredible amount of spirit and vivacity into her characters, and the ebbing and flowing of their lives is keenly felt.
Her ability to stretch the timeline back like a taut rubber band, just far enough to not break momentum, and then to snap it back to the present is enviable. I never felt as though she spent too much time building up everyone's past lives, and I never felt cheated when it was time for someone else to narrate. The rotation of narrators was smoothly done and I found myself content regardless of whose hands she saw fit to place me in.
I love that there is no grand storyline—there is simplicity, there is complexity, but there is no plot that only resides within the walls of science fiction. There are no good guys or bad guys...there are people—all wrapped up in their usual layers of both good and bad and everything in between. Underneath it all, there is the desire to live.
Audiobook version, narrated by [a:Kirsten Potter|2077160|Kirsten Potter|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]: To read a beautiful novel and do it justice is not an easy feat. Ms. Potter has a voice that is both warm and crisp, and it was a joy to listen to her soothing voice reading these fantastically written words.