Review: Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kim recommended this book, and Lisa seconded it, so I took that as a great set of recommendations.

I liked it a lot. I've read a *lot* of post-apocolyptic fiction - enough so that when one of Mandel's characters makes an reference to an obscure book from this genre, I had read it: The Passage.

This book was interesting in a few ways. First, it was very much about the characters and character development, not about plot. Even minor characters (like a girl in an airport) are exceptionally well-thought through and sketched completely with just a few details. The world becomes post-apocalyptic after a bad flu kills most of the population and infrastructure (like electricity) completely disintegrates. Decades later, there are small settlements of groups of people, but a lot of mistrust between different towns, and nearly no new infrastructure has emerged.

The frustrating part of this book was also probably what made it so good - not only did it move back and forth across time, but it didn't give a lot of details about when the flu hit. There were a few small stories about specific people during the time around the flu, and through the intervening years, but not a complete narrative of the collapse. But like I said, that was part of what was so good about the book - how well Mandel told a story with really limited details, and how much it focused me on the characters.

In short, a great read. Hope to read more by her in the future.

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