Liked it, then LOVED it | Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel

Knopf
September 9, 2014

From Goodreads:

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

This one was recommended by a friend who doesn’t blog. I know, right? I think I actually forgot that people who don’t blog also read and recommend books. However, I’m glad I tried it out, cause I ended up loving the book. But Emily St. John Mandel did it, and it’s amazing.

Station Eleven is essentially The Walking Dead with a whole lot more soul and meaning. If someone told me to write an end of the world scenario but to make it thought-provoking and poignant I’d be staring at a blank word document until the end of the world really happened.

This book snuck up on me. While I was never bored, the first half didn’t wow me. I remember thinking, ‘this is pretty good, but I don’t know what the fuss is all about.’ That mainly had to do with misdirection. The author uses this tiny little window to show you pieces of the entire picture, and the whole time that little window is hopping and skipping all over the place. You’re getting all this information, but you don’t really know what any of it has to do with anything else.

Then, a little over the halfway point, she makes that window a little bigger and you start to see connections. Everything gets a little more exciting. The window continues to get bigger and bigger and you start to realize that everything is connected. The pieces all drop into place and you’re left trying to catch your breath in such a satisfying way.

The other thing that really impressed me was the poignancy in the way these characters looked back on the world we loss. The very world you’re sitting in as the reader. All the things we feel like we couldn’t live without for a few days, maybe a few hours in some cases, and these people that have lived through the end of the world look back and make us realize how silly it all is.

This book is for anyone and everyone. It really makes you take a look at your life, the world around you, and re-evaluate what’s really important. It’s not going to change your life and make you throw your phone into the river, but it’s just that little bit of perspective. And the next time you have a bad day you can think about the people of Station Eleven and how they had to live in an airport at the end of the world.

Fun fact about this post: One of the characters draws comic books based off of a character named Doctor Eleven. I really want to know if this is a silent nod to Matt Smith’s version of Doctor Who.