I know I'm not the first person to say this, but holy cow, its a book about the end of the world that's actually somewhat hopeful! It cares about humanity and people surviving and, while it doesn't gloss over the badness that is, you know, near total annihilation of everyone, it emphasizes humanity and not just surviving, but thriving.
Also, traveling symphony and Shakespeare company. I prefer my end of the world scenarios to contain those.
Station Eleven is so interesting because it takes the usual narrative (here's how the world ended, here's how we survived) and mostly shoves it to the background in favor of looking at the lives of people before and after the end. It's a series of character meditations and works precisely because I was invested in all these characters and how the world they live in made them who they are. It had a David Mitchell feel to it, except without the sense of inescapable environmental disaster hanging over it.
Station Eleven straddles the line between speculative and literary (as a genre) fiction admirably. I think I'd like to see more like it.