Station Eleven

This was marketed as a dystopia, but it's really more post-Apocalypse fiction. There's a fine line between the two – and sometimes things can straddle it – but I wouldn't call this a dystopia. So I'm a little disappointed there. Otherwise, it was good. I'm left not really sure how I should feel about it, though. I prefer books that make me feel a certain way – romances make me happy, non-fiction usually makes me feel smarter, like I've learned something, graphic novels make me nostalgic. I'm even okay with books like The Fault in Our Stars, or The Crown's Game, that left me a weeping mess. Station Eleven just left me with an “...o-kay?” Like, what am I supposed to do with this? Unlike most dystopias, I don't feel like it was a social commentary because it's post-apocalyptic. (In this case, a virus swept through and killed about 99% of Earth's population.) But at the same time, because it details events both before and after the apocalypse, I feel like it was trying to be?

The book focuses on how Arthur Leander, a famous actor, touches lives both before and after the apocalypse. It's a little ironic that it focuses so much on him since he died before it happened. Well. As it started to happen, really, but of a heart attack, not the virus. It rotates between a few different perspectives, but the one used most often is that of Kirsten, who was a child actor in Arthur's last performance. She survives the apocalypse and ends up traveling with “The Traveling Symphony,” a band of actors and musicians who travel between far-flung settlements around the Great Lakes. The name refers to a comic book drawn by Arthur's first wife. There's a dozen little coincidences in the book, leading to people who knew Arthur meeting or almost meeting, but affecting each others' lives. There are also flashbacks showing Arthur's life before the apocalypse, and how those people knew him.

I don't know. It didn't jump around as much as Oryx and Crake did, it was much easier to follow, but it just left me – meh? It wasn't a bad book, but I don't think I'd recommend it. I know other people have given it glowing reviews, so I might just be the odd person out.

See all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks