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A review by emmareadstoomuch
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
5.0
This book is so beautiful.
I am not even talking about the cover - although actually, let’s take a second to talk about the cover. LOOK AT THIS COVER! Are you seeing it? So lovely. So so pretty. Looooook aaaaaaattttt itttttttt.
Okay, now that we’ve done that.
This book is so beautiful.
I don’t know what I expected. I honestly don’t really know why I picked this up, besides the aforementioned pretty-cover thing. I’m not a huge sci-fi person. I’m definitely not a huge post-apocalyptic dystopian person. (We all lived through the time when YA just seemed like different iterations of the exact same dystopian plotline. Like, were there not at least two years in which every YA book was the Hunger Games and Divergent under a different title, but somehow increasingly bland? Anyway.)
I don’t know what tempted me to pick this up, but good golly am I glad I did. (And good golly am I sorry I just used the term “good golly.”)
Because, again, this book is so, so beautiful.
It’s gorgeously written. Every time I stumble across a beautifully written book, I feel so lucky about it. It’s hard to stumble upon truly lovely prose, and I certainly never expected it from an Apocalypse Book, but holy sh*t is it what I received. The writing is enchanting.
It’s also gorgeously characterized. There are a lot of characters in this book, many of whom are introduced all at once, and many of whom get very little coverage in the book. But somehow……..none of them feel flat. They’re not easy to confuse with one another. Somehow, without your noticing, this book will get you to care about a dozen or so people. (And they really feel like people.)
And its themes are gorgeous, too. I can’t imagine anyone coming out of this story and not feeling newly in love with life and with the world. Civilization just seems so wondrous after this. I looked at so many commonplace things in a whole new light.
This book is sad, and lovely, and exciting, and slow, and true, and earnest, and caring, and sweet, and cruel, and real, and above all it is so, so beautiful.
Bottom line: Everything about this is an unexpected gift.
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pre-review
i am Overwhelmed by Beauty and Meaning and Good Things and there is simply no way i can really rate this at this time, let alone review it.
review (& final rating) to come, when i've redeveloped some semblance of personhood
----------------
tbr review
honestly can't believe i've waited so long to read a book with a cover this pretty
I am not even talking about the cover - although actually, let’s take a second to talk about the cover. LOOK AT THIS COVER! Are you seeing it? So lovely. So so pretty. Looooook aaaaaaattttt itttttttt.
Okay, now that we’ve done that.
This book is so beautiful.
I don’t know what I expected. I honestly don’t really know why I picked this up, besides the aforementioned pretty-cover thing. I’m not a huge sci-fi person. I’m definitely not a huge post-apocalyptic dystopian person. (We all lived through the time when YA just seemed like different iterations of the exact same dystopian plotline. Like, were there not at least two years in which every YA book was the Hunger Games and Divergent under a different title, but somehow increasingly bland? Anyway.)
I don’t know what tempted me to pick this up, but good golly am I glad I did. (And good golly am I sorry I just used the term “good golly.”)
Because, again, this book is so, so beautiful.
It’s gorgeously written. Every time I stumble across a beautifully written book, I feel so lucky about it. It’s hard to stumble upon truly lovely prose, and I certainly never expected it from an Apocalypse Book, but holy sh*t is it what I received. The writing is enchanting.
It’s also gorgeously characterized. There are a lot of characters in this book, many of whom are introduced all at once, and many of whom get very little coverage in the book. But somehow……..none of them feel flat. They’re not easy to confuse with one another. Somehow, without your noticing, this book will get you to care about a dozen or so people. (And they really feel like people.)
And its themes are gorgeous, too. I can’t imagine anyone coming out of this story and not feeling newly in love with life and with the world. Civilization just seems so wondrous after this. I looked at so many commonplace things in a whole new light.
This book is sad, and lovely, and exciting, and slow, and true, and earnest, and caring, and sweet, and cruel, and real, and above all it is so, so beautiful.
Bottom line: Everything about this is an unexpected gift.
----------------
pre-review
i am Overwhelmed by Beauty and Meaning and Good Things and there is simply no way i can really rate this at this time, let alone review it.
review (& final rating) to come, when i've redeveloped some semblance of personhood
----------------
tbr review
honestly can't believe i've waited so long to read a book with a cover this pretty