Station Eleven

That's. Not. How. It. Works. That's not how ANY of it works.

You know that one relative, they're streamofconsciousnessing, you're nodding, uh huh, your smile frozen in a rictus, your eyes trying not to express please please please stop? This is a whole book like that. No quantum chakras or alien abductions, thank FSM, but every few pages there was a moment that made me pause and wonder, does this writer have any clue how the world works? Fundamental misunderstandings of just sooooo many concepts: cultural, social, biological, physical, probably more I missed. At one point involving basic outdoor logistics G. muttered “I don't think the author has ever been camping.”

Okay, those are quibbles. If the story had been great I would chuckle and shake my head and enjoy. But the story centered around a handful of characters who were briefly connected—sometimes flimsily—in the pre-apocalypse world, now surviving twenty years later, with glimpses into their lives Before. The reader is supposed to form a bond with these characters, maybe? This reader didn't. I found nearly all of them affectless and difficult to believe; a bad combination. And the story... well, let's call it “contrived.” Anyhow. I finished, and am glad it's over.

(Side note, I've picked up an interesting habit from friend A.: on books that have been recommended to me, I no longer even read their blurb, just dive right in. So I had no idea about the very premise, the whole pandemic thing, nothing. Not sure I would've started it if I had known.)

EDIT: few days later: I figured it out. It's nostalgia porn: many scenes are “oh, didn't we have it good” or “we should make the Internet and movie celebrities a core part of what we teach our ten-year-olds.” I found all that stuff weird, but now it makes sense.