The book follows the story of several characters, mainly Kirsten, and actor in Year Twenty who works with the Travelling Symphony preforming Shakespeare all over North America. The other character is Arthur Leander another actor preforming King Lear in Toronto before he dies of a heart attack on stage. The book goes through his life, and his three ex-wives.
There is a lot more to this story, and all of the characters are so expertly woven together, and pretty much every character has some importance. I find with complex plots that interconnect and jump between flash backs, and the current time can be very confusing and difficult to follow. Station Eleven wasn't like that. And even characters you expect to just stop appearing after the outbreak, actually do keep appearing.
The characters themselves are also really interesting, but we don't learn a lot about them. We learn a lot about Arthur, and a bit about Kirsten, but there are still a lot of questions unanswered. I know some people hate this, but I kind of like it.
The climax is a little anti-climatic, and feels a bit rushed, but the pacing of the rest of the story makes up for it. It's a very quick read, but still a very interesting one.
And personally, I don't think the book is meant to be about the plot, but rather the relationships between this large cast of characters. All of these characters are connected expertly, and it's like a giant web. Even though the plot is nothing super special, the way St. John Mandel twines up the lives of all of these characters in a way that makes sense is amazing.
The world of Station Eleven is very well built, and you could easily picture it. Even though it is our lives after the end of the world, there is still world building to be done. And I like what the author did with futuristic North America. And what to me was most interesting is that one of the stories in the book takes place only 20 years into the future. Unlike a lot of dystopians I've read where it's hundreds of years.
Having this point in time is terrifying. You read apocalypse books, and they take place in the distant future. But this end of the world could take place today. And that was a really good choice in my opinion. It added another level of fear to this book.
So despite not having a huge climax, I really enjoyed this book. It was something I didn't think I was going to like as much as I did. But Station Eleven became the book I didn't know I wanted.
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