‘Station Eleven’, Emily St. John Mandel (3)
Ms. St. John Mandel seems prescient with this 2014
released post apocalyptic book – since the apocalypse occurs due to a rampant
disease that quickly wipes out much of civilization – and the book was released
just before the Ebola epidemic in Africa started to scare much of our media
into a frenzied mess. Her story spans about 25 years – a few years before the
epidemic and 20 years after – with it starting as the main characters are faced
with the few days of panic as the disease makes its way through the population.
She aptly describes the desolation achieved quickly with the lack of people,
then power, then food, and finally all modern conveniences become useless. The
story moves in jumps, both forwards and backwards. I enjoyed following the
characters as the author jumped into the future and back again, though I would
have liked a more balanced look at the characters. For example, the first
character we meet disappears from the narrative for 100’s of pages. In general,
the word ‘more’ describes my overall feelings for this book. After reading the
330+ pages, I felt something was missing, particularly give the acclaim this
book has been getting. The writing was good, but the material was not as fresh
and new as I was led to believe.
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