Station Eleven was a book I was both excited and apprehensive to pick up. I have yet to hear of anyone who didn’t love it, but it is also about a pandemic that whips out 99% of life. It hits a bit too close to home. Having now finished this masterpiece I will say the hype is worth, and ultimately this book is about life.

I adore the writing. I have never read anything by Emily St. John Mandel before, but I plan to pick up more. It was beautiful, but not in a flowery lyrical way. The book has multiple POVs that are not written linearly. The way it was all put together to create this story was genius. The characters are also all well constructed. This is a real world and real people. You see the complexities of human nature. 

A lot of apocalyptic books can be overly dark. They have no faith in human nature. Also, a huge pet peeve of mine is when people can only scavenge. All of humankind forgets that food existed before grocery stores. Thankfully that does not happen in this books. Instead Station Eleven shows how dynamic humans are. It shows humans moving forward because “survival is insufficient.” There is joy and pain, life and death, friendship and fanatics. It shows that we are all connected. This is a book that will leave you changed.

And a special note of appreciation to all of the Star Trek references.