This book was far more interesting than I originally imagined it would be. I have not read much contemporary or modern fiction recently, but after “Station Eleven” was recommended and given to me by a friend, I decided to give it a shot and I was pleasantly surprised.

Naturally, this book would be interesting and captivating to anyone who is a fan of post-apocalyptic works, as it takes place years after a flu epidemic which wipes out much of the world’s population. The characters of Mandel’s post-apocalyptic world are not the characters one would expect from such a bleak future. There are still characters who love, who act, who hate to kill, who create, and who look forward to a world where perhaps life could return back to normal. The characters are deeply human.

The storyline itself is interesting, as the timeline and perspective are constantly on the move. At times, Mandel writes from the perspective of the paparazzi, years before the end of the world, and at other times, she writes from the viewpoint of a child actor grown up in the bleak world after the epidemic. This parallelism in her writing helps in creating an ironic look at current life—life that is focused far too much on tabloids, on undercutting each other, on taking far too many things for granted.

All in all, this is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone—even those that are not naturally predisposed to taking interest in a post-apocalyptic work of fiction.