Notes from Station Eleven

Thoughts as I read Station Eleven

• I love this story and about 50 pages or so from the end, I marvel at the author’s ability to weave all the threads in the story together, so gracefully, like a tapestry finally being revealed.
• Advice: don’t take long breaks. I read this with long breaks in between reading sessions, which was a horrible way to read such an intricate story. It would be better to set aside a weekend or a day and read cover for cover. I hope to have the I luxury to do so, one day soon.

Thoughts after finishing Stations Eleven

• Advice after finishing the book: surrender to the uncertainties in style and form because the author masterfully brings the ends together. Also be willing to surrender to the uncertainty of the story, go along with a new thread or character, even if it seem disjointed to start with, because the author slowly erases the uncertainty and shows how the pieces all fit together.
• Each character has so much to unpack and examine, it would be great to spend time analyzing this work. There is so much about the human existence, trying to imagine what would a life without modern convenience, security, and technology feel and look like. Reminding us of both the large (electricity, internet, medicine, airplanes) and the small (salt, shampoo, newspapers, clothes) – not being transported back to an earlier time where living without conveniences and technology make sense, but seeing the remnants of a plentiful civilization and living with the memories of so many things you can never have again.
• Avoid this book if you dislike: a story that jumps between characters and time periods, characters with missing memories that are never fully recovered, dystopia unconcerned with the immediate aftermath of disease and chaos, and accepting uncertainty.
• Rating: 5 starts, all the way! Speculative fiction, dystopian with hope, beauty, and humanity – this book was so worth the time and trust I put in the author. Hurray for the survival of art, music, and the theater!

Mandel, Emily St. John, 1979- author. Station Eleven. Toronto, Ontario, Canada :Harper Avenue, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2014. Print.