Review: Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Station Eleven is one of those books everyone seemed to be reading and loving. Being the kind of person to give into bookish peer pressure, I found myself purchasing the book with quite high expectations. Unfortunately, I seem to belong to the minority with this book. I wanted to love it, but the more I read the less I was enjoying it.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to like with this book. It is beautifully written, the prose pulling you in from the very start. The storyline had a number of interesting elements. However, it simply wasn’t for more. More accurately, it was not what I had been hoping to read.

I went into Station Eleven believing I would receive a wonderful dystopian tale. I positively adore a good dystopian tale. I’m tentative about entering new worlds, fearful they are all starting to look too much alike, but I’m always eager to find something new. Station Eleven was not a dystopian tale. It was a post-apocalyptic tale, but I love those just as much. In fact, I’m less fearful of those worlds.

What I really enjoyed was the way we got to see the world before the end, as the end arrived, and years after the end. It allowed for a lot of perspective, allowing us to see a much bigger picture. It really was enjoyable. However, the way in which these different times were shared made it hard for me to really connect with any one element of the story. I would find myself enjoying the post-apocalyptic tale only for it to reach an abrupt end, flickering to the storyline of an actor before the world fell apart, before the story changed again.

In large, this reflects a personal preference. I’m not a big fan of storylines that jump around. The occasional flashback is okay, but it felt to me as though we were jumping around too much. The different elements of the story were interconnected in a wonderful way, but all the bouncing around that occurred prevented me from becoming truly invested in the way I hoped to be. Moreover, I felt as though the post-apocalyptic elements I usually love were not as developed as they could have been due to this bouncing around. We were too caught up in connections between the different points in time to enjoy the possible big events in the most interesting parts of the storyline.

Overall, I think I went into this one expecting the wrong thing. I expected a mind-blowing story, something completely new, but what I was given wasn’t quite to my taste. I can understand why so many people enjoyed this one, but it wasn’t for me at all.

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