Saturday, June 06, 2020

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven is a futuristic novel that alters between a pre and post-apocalypse time period. After a deadly flu - called the Georgia Flu - has taken the world by surprise, only the very few mentioned in the novel are spared. After the outbreak, all electrical lines fail to work and the world falls into a dark silence. Decades later, the survivors of the flu find themselves rebuilding what is left of their hometown and create a small theatrical group called the "Traveling Symphony," which performs various works of Shakespeare. Interestingly enough, a blank spot remains in everyone's memories of the night of the outbreak. Over the course of the book, the theatrical group comes across various clues and together they will find out what exactly led to this disastrous event.

The book was a pleasure to read because of the multiple layers of suspense. Mandel uses the stories of several characters to build around the main idea, the outbreak of the Georgia Flu. Strangely enough, the plot of this book is much similar to the current events today, but written six years ago! Which is what drew my attention to this book in the first place.

I would recommend this book because of the interesting plot and the multiple settings in various time periods that gives each chapter a different story and its own uniqueness. However, I will have to admit that it will take some time getting used to the unusual way of presenting the story and the climax does come a bit slow.

Review Written by Cindy, 10th Grade