Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven

ByEmily St. John Mandel

  • Release Date: 2014-09-09
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4
4
From 3,325 Ratings

Description

This Anniversary Edition of Station Eleven, a finalist for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of the Twenty-First Century by the New York Times, celebrates ten years of this now iconic novel with a new color illustration and a guide to “The Mandelverse”

A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

It is fifteen years after a flu pandemic wiped out most of the world's population. Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony, a small troupe moving over the gutted landscape, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. But when they arrive in the outpost of St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the disaster brought everyone here, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty, telling a story about the relationships that sustain us.

Reviews

  • It all comes together in the end

    5
    By D'Reading
    Plot and character development pull together an interesting and uplifting story at the end of the world

  • A Beautifully Woven Post Apocalyptic Mosaic

    4
    By 06PaulKubo
    It’s honestly disturbing how a book published in 2014 can feel like a parallel universe of what happened to us in 2020. While reading Station Eleven, I kept thinking about lockdowns, empty streets, fear, and how closely its pandemic world echoes our own reality. It made me question whether this story is fiction, or a mirror of what almost happened to us.

    Beyond that eerie familiarity, the writing is clean, vivid, and incredibly easy to follow. The characters feel fully alive as you move through multiple timelines and intersecting plots across a long arc of time. The story holds attention from start to finish, and the way everything connects is genuinely impressive.

    I’m giving it a 4/5 only because this genre isn’t usually my favorite, but the execution is excellent. This is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year, and absolutely worth reading.

  • Great page turner

    4
    By Mitchfos
    Interesting book, good character development makes this book an excellent read.

  • Bittersweet but beautiful

    5
    By BethJamison
    Very well written and also so tragic and melancholy but characters are truly amazing

  • Humane but unrealistic

    3
    By F1-2-A
    Anyone who takes on a post-apocalyptic story should vet their work by a soldier or veteran. While it’s a great premise and beautifully written, there were too many inaccurate or unbelievable bits for me to buy into the story overall.

  • Fantastic

    5
    By girlguts
    Beautifully woven story of lives in the before and the after. This is the first book I’ve read by this author. They’ve got a fan for life.

  • Good story.

    3
    By CBLands
    I had a hard time following the characters going in and out of flashbacks, or was it all just mixed up? Not the most enjoyable book I’ve ever read. The concept was pretty cool, but I got lost in the bouncing around timelines.
    I’m sure it is a great book. Just not for me. Maybe if I read it again I’ll understand it better.

  • Jeez…

    5
    By HappyToReadAllDay
    This book was written in 2014….

    5 years before Covid,
    5 years before this almost became reality…,

  • A Masterpiece

    5
    By Bobgriffqqwwer
    Came looking for a deep dive on a pandemic, and was swept away instead by one of the most brilliantly woven tapestries of characters and attention to detail that I’ve ever experienced. Read it in two days, barely able to stop. Haunting. Beautiful. And as someone who is prone to reading male authors the mind behind this story opened my eyes to a different way of experiencing the world.

  • Compelling read with a masterful story structure.

    5
    By filmguyryan
    This novel unravels an incredible story of a global pandemic told through the experiences of a handful of unique perspectives. The characters are compelling, the narrative engaging. What really stands about Station Eleven however is the masterful way in which Emily St. John Mandel weaves the plot twists into the fabric of the book with precision. The backstories and character reveals happen in a way that jumps back and forth through time. In other literature this can seem gimmicky or forced. For Station Eleven it happens in such a beautiful way so as to be seamless. These jumps through time feel perfect. Clues and context pieces are paced and portioned out at just the right moment so that it ties seamlessly into the present day events effortlessly. Truly this is the best example of this storytelling that I’ve seen.

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About "Station Eleven"

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