Hi friends, happy Wednesday, I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m posting my review of Emily St. John Mandel’s novel, Station Eleven.

This book was short-listed for Canada Reads 2023.

Station Eleven by: Emily St. John Mandel: In a world where a mass flu is about to break, this tells the story of three characters, Arthur, Jeevan and Kristen, and the relationships and lives they lived before and after this mass pandemic. We start at Arthur’s death and work back through his life. Meanwhile, we follow Jeevan, who tried to save Arthur’s life, and Kristen, who witnessed Arthur’s death as a child, and we follow both of them through their lives before and after the pandemic and how they are all interconnected in the web that is life. This was a very interesting concept for a novel; a little close to home after the last few years we’ve had, but interesting nonetheless. There was a lot of movement in this, we had a cast of characters who had a thread that connected them all together, which was really captivating to read, but it just felt disjointed a lot of the time. We spent too much time trying to piece it all together and less time actually enjoying the story. The way this was told in a back and forth timeline didn’t really help with how disconnected it could all feel at times. It was still fast-paced and there were moments in-between it all that were beautifully crafted with thoughts and feelings about life. The reader also appreciated all the Star Trek references; they were spot on and used effectively. The reader liked the characters, but they felt no real connection to them. Instead, we were left trying to figure out how they were all connected and how they fit into the bigger picture. It didn’t feel like we spent enough time really getting to know each of them before we were off learning about another character. Just when the reader was getting to know and understand a character, the point of view would change. Some characters were more interesting than others, so when we got longer chapters of a less interesting one, it felt like the novel was beginning to drag. The reader really wanted to like this, but this was just not for them. From the concept, to the way it was told, to unmemorable characters, this just felt like an uninspired read. Maybe if the reader had read this before a global pandemic, this would have wowed them in originality, but because it felt like we already lived this dystopia, this felt unexciting and did nothing for them.