anonymous

I was living my life peacefully until I crossed paths with this disgrace of a book again. I read this book about a year ago, and had came to peace with its horrible existence. Then, the other day I saw it labeled under the “Modern Classics” section of the bookstore, and I was so infuriated I had to comment on the horrific nature of this book. It was so bad I would love to rate it lower than 1 if possible. To me, Station Eleven was simply an expensive and wasteful way to share the message that; “humans need to connect and survive through art to enjoy life in difficult times.” I commend Mandel for attempting to communicate such a vibrant and lovely message: but this book was simply the same as saying my previous sentence, but with the cost of publishing over 300 pages, hiring a publicist, an editor, and wasting the reader’s time. First off, the story’s structure has no depth. It felt like Mandel took a check list and wrote down all of the ‘wonderful’ ideas she had for her book, without integrating them well. I’m fine with slow books, but this book was slow in all the meaningless ways. There were so many irrelevant points and notions of character development that were simply added to seemingly make the requirements for an adequate story. It’s like she had a checklist with authorial choices she was required to integrate. Those details added no depth to the story, and made the entirety of this shameful book confusing. I wish Mandel could have gotten to the point, and wrote this book in 10 page, like it should be fit for: it seemed like she was trying to make a stupid word count. I hated this book, and if you were able to read the essential message I wrote in this review, reading this book is a waste of your time. The book does not share the message in a motivational way. Yet, it simply puts it out for you to decipher, without any meaning attached. You’re better off reading my review than wasting your life on this book. I hope she gets better at writing.