Will Sargent reviewed Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Review of 'Station Eleven' on 'Storygraph'
1 star
I downloaded this book from Kindle on Amazon's recommendation. I have never been so sorry to do so.
Station Eleven is an apocalypse novel in which none of the characters worry about food, clothing, or shelter. It is based around an actor who dies on stage during King Lear, and the various people who are associated with that person, including his first wife, who privately draws a comic book called Station Eleven, which is read by some of the younger people in the book.
There are few things I find unforgivable in a book, but excessive nostalgia and sentimentality are amongst them. Station Eleven is roughly 50% characters reminicing about their pasts, and when it isn't alluding to the past it's alluding to the near future where they're all dead. It's the same trick, every time, all the time. Multiple times from the same perspective. At first I was shocked, …
I downloaded this book from Kindle on Amazon's recommendation. I have never been so sorry to do so.
Station Eleven is an apocalypse novel in which none of the characters worry about food, clothing, or shelter. It is based around an actor who dies on stage during King Lear, and the various people who are associated with that person, including his first wife, who privately draws a comic book called Station Eleven, which is read by some of the younger people in the book.
There are few things I find unforgivable in a book, but excessive nostalgia and sentimentality are amongst them. Station Eleven is roughly 50% characters reminicing about their pasts, and when it isn't alluding to the past it's alluding to the near future where they're all dead. It's the same trick, every time, all the time. Multiple times from the same perspective. At first I was shocked, then I was appalled, and then finally I was embarrassed. Station Eleven doesn't simply overegg the pudding here: it puts icing on the wobbly undercooked blancmange and expects you to treat it like an artisanal pastry. Avoid.