First - I can’t believe it took me so long to finally read this book. And second - my timing really couldn’t have been worse!

The story starts with a global pandemic, which is kind of scary to read considering what is happening in the world right now. The plot itself is actually centred around a famous actor, who has a heart attack on stage and dies the night the pandemic kicks off. I found myself picturing the story like the spokes of a wheel, with the actor in the middle and all of the other characters stories branching out from his. The wide and varied cast of characters end up connected in some pretty unexpected ways because of this.

Station Eleven is definitely not an upbeat tale; Mandel digs deep into how people could survive the end of modern civilization. It’s not pretty. But there are small bits of hope sprinkled throughout that kept me reading.

Really, the only thing I struggled with was the ‘villain’ of the story. His part was actually quite small, and his arc ended in a way that felt like a really inconsequential part of the story. He felt unnecessary. Honestly, if he hadn’t been included at all this would definitely have been 5/5.