Over the summer I read Station Eleven written by Emily St. John Mandel. I was excited to read this book mainly because books that have a type of pandemic scenario really interest me, this book is something I would see myself choosing to read. As an overall thought on this book, I enjoyed it. Ms. St. John Mendel is a truly gifted writer who is incredibly talented.
Before I get to the positive reflection, one thing that I do not love in books is extreme description. This book was incredibly detailed, and although sometimes that can be really good in a book… I thought at parts there was a bit too much description. It sometimes got a little overwhelming and many parts the seemed slightly insignificant were really blown up. Of course, the description was beautifully written, it was sometimes too much.
At the beginning of this book, I was incredibly confused on how this little girl named Kirsten Raymonde would become the main character, at the beginning, she seemed like a little insignificant girl, but she turned out to be a really important character. I was also confused as to why Arthur Leander, who was another main character, wound up dead four or fives pages into the novel. I had hundreds of question arise within the first few pages of the novel, but of course, as I progressed every question seemed to be answered. Everything begin piecing together and the significance of every part became very apparent. Ms. St. John Mandel did an exception job of keeping the reader very interested and then letting everything fall together that eventually made the reader go “OHHHHH, that all makes so much sense”, and to me, that is the best feeling. When things are so confused, but you finally get that moment of clarity. When the end of the book came along, everything made a full circle and I felt like all my questions had been sufficiently answered.
One of my favorite parts of reading a book is the moment when the title begins to make sense to you. To me, that is when you begin to really understand the book. From there you can then see how and why the author chose the book name he or she did. You asses the significance of the title and really understand why it is such a big part of the book that you are reading. Station Eleven in the book was a graphic novel that Arthur Leanders first wife, Miranda Carroll created. It was a novel about a Doctor named Dr. Eleven and they lived in a world that had been taken over by aliens. The planets people were forced to evacuate. This graphic novel connected almost all of the characters to each other. Arthur and Miranda were married and when they split Miranda left a few copies for Arthurt. When Arthur did not want them he gave them to his Kirsten Raymonde. Kirsten and Arthur knew each other because they were actors in the same play. The play that they knew each other from is the play where Arthur Leander died of a heart attack on stage. Ever since that moment Kirsten Raymonde always kept Arthur in her heart. After Arthur gave Station Eleven to Kirsten and Arthur dying, Kirsten never let anything happen to the graphic novel. Miranda (the author and Arthurs first wife) gave the other copies of the novel to her son Tyler Leander (Arthur and Miranda’s child). Tyler Leander eventually becomes a very important part of the book. He is known as the prophet who is the leader of a very religious cult in a small town in the post-pandemic world. The reason this book was so well written is because of how well everyone is connected and how all the characters do not know each other but are all still connected because they are all rooted to Arthur Leander in some way.
This book has dimensions, it is not flat. This book is complex and in some respects can be hard to follow because of how many different people are in the book. This book is also difficult to follow because of how the time periods change throughout the whole book. One chapter could be in present day in the post-pandemic world and then one second later it could switch to the past. This storytelling technique gives the book much more dimensions, which is something that I really like in a book.
At the beginning of this book and even towards the middle, I was not a huge fan. As the story progressed and things really came together that is when the genius in this book was truly exposed. Going back and thinking about how every single part of this book was connected it’s crazy how everything just seems to make sense when looking at the whole picture.
sofiadodaro 