Book Review | Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I had heard pretty good things about this book, and it had been on my to-read list for a bit. I saw it on my library shelves and quickly grabbed it.

The Plot

The book opens with actor, Arthur Leander, having a heart attack on stage during a performance of King Lear. An EMT, Jeevan Chaudhary, is in the audience and jumps on the stage to help. While this is all happening a child actress, Kirsten Raymonde, watches as Jeevan attempts to save Arthur's life by performing CPR. That same night a lethal flu begins to spread causing the hospitals to overflow. Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves in an apartment watching as the freeways clog, gunshots ring and civilization disintegrates.

Fifteen years later, Kirstin is a part of The Traveling Symphony; a group that moves between settlements in this altered world performing Shakespeare and music. When the group arrives at the settlement St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet.

This book cover decades, jumping back and forth in time depicting life before and after the pandemic. During this we see the links and twists of fate that connect them all through time.

My Thoughts

I'm not sure I depicted it well in my synopsis but this book is really quite dark. There is some love, but it's mostly loss. Loss of love, loss of life, loss of a way of living, loss of civilization; it's just all over the place. But yet it's not a depressing book. There are people who survive the pandemic, and make new lives for themselves. They figure out how to survive in this new way of life. The way of linking all the characters together is not obvious as well, which I like. It's subtle and tantalizing. I absolutely adored this novel, giving it a well-deserved 5 stars.