Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

My book for February was Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I finished the book while we were at Sea Ranch. Carmen gave me the book for Christmas.

Station Eleven is a novel by the Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel. It takes place in the Great Lakes region before and after a pandemic. The "Georgia Flu" has devastated the world and killed most of the population.

The book was published in 2014 and won the Arthur C. Clarke Award the following year. The novel was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. It appeared on several best-of-year lists. A ten-part television adaptation of the same name premiered on HBO Max in December 2021.

This is probably not a book that I would have picked out myself. My interests lean more towards hard science fiction. In fact, the author insists that the book shouldn't even be considered science fiction. It uses an interesting combination of flash forwards and flash backs as it follows several main characters. My major criticism is that there is one character that plays a major role into who you don't get much insight. I enjoyed the book and recommend it. I grade it a solid "B."