Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Review

Fiction

336 pages

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Completion: I was fully invested in this book. I would have read it and finished it even if it hadn’t been for class. What a refreshing surprise! 

(P.S. I'm so glad I don't live in a dystopian or post-apocalyptic world. I would definitely be the first to die.)

Writing/Style: St. John Mandel’s writing brings such a haunting beauty to the collapse of civilization as we know it. By writing about the world before the collapse and twenty years after it, she manages to avoid the cliches of the mainstream dystopian genre.

Mainstream dystopian novels be like...

Characters: This story has significant cast of characters, and yet they are distinct and richly developed. There are moments where you feel emotionally invested in all of them, and that’s a hard feat to pull off. Plus, even if you have your favorites, each character presents a different part of this vast post-collapse world and present different ways to react and survive in this world.

Plot/Pacing: This is not a linear plot, but it never felt jumpy or slow. St. John Mandel did a great job of weaving the pre- and post-collapse worlds together, sometimes with only a few sentences. One of my favorite examples of this (no spoilers) was when I read a chapter of minor characters in the pre-collapse world having a conversation when the story flashes forward to say:

“Of all of them there at the bar that night, the bartender was the one who survived the longest. He died three weeks later on the road out of the city” (15).

Shivers, amiright?

World-building/Atmosphere: This book balances tragedy and hope and redemption of human relationships in a seemingly isolated world. I felt completely enveloped in the landscape of this novel.

Sub-genres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): While I wouldn’t classify this novel as a mystery by any means, St. John Mandel by going backward and forward in time slowly puts together this puzzle of the connections between her cast of characters that is surprising satisfying. As well, while the topic is serious, she does a great job of balancing it with moments of levity.

FINAL VERDICT: If you are looking for adrenaline-filled adventure through a post-civilization wasteland with cannibals, shoot-outs, and villains, oh my!, then look elsewhere. For everyone else, this is a smart, satisfying read that will leave you wanting more.

Divergent by Veronica Roth Review

Fiction
487 pages

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Completion: A
Writing/Style: B
Characters: D+
Plot/Pace: C-
World-building/Atmosphere: D
Subgenres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): D+

Final Grade: C Library Rental

This book needed some serious trimming. It is a tome. I believe it is because Roth couldn’t decide between a serious, believable dystopian and a fun, mindless, guilty pleasure. Don’t get me wrong: I see why people like it…once I got 200+ pages in. The first half was way too slow. Partly because I didn’t find any of the exposition believable. The second half was all action. This book could not find a medium between these two speeds. It was if it was separated like water and oil.
I like to think that I came into this book open-minded, but I never once found the world-building even mildly believable. I am going to give SPOILERS about the world-building that you will find in the first half of this novel because I think that will be the only way anyone can make an educated choice about reading this book. You have been warned.
In this futuristic Chicago, society is divided into 5 factions. These factions follow only one personality trait: bravery, honesty, selflessness, intelligence, and peacefulness. Now that much I could have believed. It would have taken work, but this premise definitely had potential. However, the world-building continues. When people turn 16 in this world, they take a test to see what faction they should be in. But…but…if they were trained from birth to follow the virtue of a particular faction, wouldn’t they best fit that faction? If they got into any another faction, wouldn’t that already make them Divergent, which is a bad thing for whatever reason? Then, after the test, they go to a ceremony where they CHOOSE which faction to go into. So…so…the test was irrelevant? So I could come from Candor, have a test that says I should be in Abnegation, and then choose Dauntless? Why is everyone not Divergent then?! And I haven’t even mentioned that until they are 16, all these children from different factions go to the same school. Therefore, couldn’t the children who aren’t in the honest faction teach the honest faction children to be dishonest? Huh?!
Furthermore, that is not the end of it. After the ceremony, the children have go to the faction they chose and pass a test, otherwise they don’t get in. So why wouldn’t they just use the test they took in the beginning? So, our main character Tris goes to Dauntless which is the brave faction. Their tests are super dangerous and a lot of people die. So you would think that everyone who passes the test would get in, right? Because that test is supposed to show that you are Dauntless material? NOPE! That wouldn’t give enough suspense. So only the top 10 will get in. But…but…this faction does super dangerous stuff and people die all the time and shouldn’t they be trying to constantly recruit new members and for God’s sake they jump on and off an always moving train for funnsies! That’s right! A rundown futuristic Chicago somehow has the energy power to constantly run a train that never stops and is used only by one faction.
Do you see what I mean now? If you think about this at all, everything falls apart. I will give credit where it is due though: despite all these flaws, the second half did read well and I was able to better enjoy it. There are other flaws, mainly due to plot conveniences, but I won’t get into that here. I’m not trying to tear down this book. I know that a lot of people will enjoy this book, but there will be people like me who won’t. Perhaps, the sequel gets better. Divergent was Roth’s debut novel after all, and no one’s perfect. I just feel that for what started as an interesting premise turned into a series of conclusions that were just unreal and consequences that felt cheap. If you think that you can forget about the snags I mentioned above, give it shot. Otherwise, give it a pass. We don’t all need to jump onto a moving train.