1.03.2016

finished reading

Why did I wait so long to read this book? I LOVED it! What a wonderful way to kick off a new year of reading. There really isn't a main character. It's an interesting technique. And the different storylines thread together well, overlapping but weaving together. I used to say that I'm not a fan of dystopia, but that's not really true (thanks Hunger Games and Divergent). This isn't so much a doomsday story, though, and it hooked me from the beginning.

Ok, here's what the publisher says:
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

This doesn't seem like my typical read, but you make it sound so intriguing! I added it to my TBR pile.

Cat. said...

I have read a lot of post-apocalyptic books, but this one is very different. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It took me awhile after finishing to stop oohing whenever the lights switched on, as they are supposed to when I flip the switch.

Lisa G said...

This one's going on my "library list"....sounds right up my alley. Thanks for the tip!

zippiknits...sometimes said...

Going to put it in the TBR pile, too. Thank you!