How do others feel about this award winning book? I was just expecting a lot more. I do not want to give away any plot points, but it is about several people and how their lives intersect before and after a global pandemic which has obliterated most of the world’s population.
The majority of this book deals with their lives- giving the back story before the pandemic, but then circles back to present day- think of The Road or The Walking Dead, but minus the zombies. In my opinion, there was much too little time given to the present day plot, and it was weak. Maybe I am just desensitized to this stuff after The Walking Dead and the dozens of other similar TV series and movies. The plot was weak as was the character development, except for the one or two character that are more central to the story.
The writing also lacks a pleasant prose. In the Night Circus, while I was not all that impressed with the plot, I did like the writing- in fact it was beautifully written.
This is an award winning book, so it obviously affect many people in a good way, but I finished and I was kind of like, “that’s it?” Book was short enough to finish it in a few days, but instead it took me a month to finish because I was just not that into it.
by jcoffin1981
29 Comments
I thought it was amazing. Enough so that I got copies of her first three books and read those. I’ve since also read her last two books but Station Eleven was her best. I find her books to be sometimes difficult to follow but the plot and prose are usually worth the work.
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Loved the book but also loved the tv show.
It’s a very different kind of book than most post-apocalyptic books. I would not compare it to The Walking Dead, and I would argue that there’s very little media out there that does what this book does — which is to focus on joy, art, and community after a global event. It celebrates humanity’s need to create art in a really lovely way. I hope to see more work like this, where even if we face global catastrophe, there will still be something beautiful worth living for.
I agree with you OP! I was so underwhelmed and confused how it won awards. I kept waiting for plot development and some kind of climax and then the book ended 😒
It was not the book for me. I wanted more out of it. The story and characters felt incomplete. The climax was a huge let down. It was just…meh.
I read it twice, then read all her other books. I enjoyed the show as well.
I found it very emotionally rich, I loved her style of writing, the characters were fully fleshed out, and it was sad. Perfect book to me.
For those who’ve read it and seen the tv show, is the tv show a pretty straight adaptation? I looooooved the show.
Not related to the book but I personally know and work with the fellow who did a lot of the concept design for the space station, spaceman and the helmet when they picked up the show. He’s a very very sweet man and I appreciate his work.
I felt like the TV adaptation was way better than book, but still enjoyed both. I rarely think a tv adaptation is better than source so that’s saying something
Overall, I really enjoyed it as a sort of “soft apocalypse” book. I’m also a huge sucker for stories that weave lots of different narratives together and apart, but I know some people prefer a more limited (and linear) POV.
Specifically, there are just certain scenes that stuck with me years after I finished the book. The one with >!Miranda on the beach in Malaysia, for example, was particularly poignant for me.!< It also doesn’t hurt that I read it in mid-2020, and so there was a general mood that definitely contributed to the experience.
it’s one of my favorite books (tied with sea of tranquility and glass hotel, big emily st. john mandel fan here haha). the writing is gorgeous and every time I re-read it, I find something new. I’m not really into zombie stuff or horror, so I appreciated the lesser attention towards the present/pandemic horrors.
I loved it! It was the first book of hers I read and she became an auto buy author for me. I’ve ranked all her books I’ve read 5 stars. I can’t ever really describe her books to people other than to just say the writing is gorgeous, because when you think about it, not a ton really happens. For the most part, they’re quiet books, but the way she writes her characters is a work of art, I believe. She writes such complex characters and I feel her books are more character studies than anything else, and I find them so beautiful. I’d love for Sea of Tranquility to be made into a series. I feel if it was done right it could be great.
I loved it. Read it couple of years before Covid and boy did that book come back to me immediately!!!
It is a very interesting novel and my students in 11th grade AP Lit study it. I do think it’s lacking a certain something, and I think because of so much apocalyptic fiction and media, we expect a big climax with violence or war. The book is more of the capital “L” literature that explores internal conflicts rather than external.
I read it before COVID and thought it was amazing. I read it again this year and found it much less enjoyable. I still liked it but I think, having lived through a pandemic (working in a hospital), that the themes and characters seemed less profound than before.
It’s an incredible book full of beautiful writing that I expect to return to regularly through my life. Her next book, The Glass Hotel, is even better.
I don’t know, not everything is for everyone
Did not like this book at all. I got through and the writing is nice, but everything just fell short for me. Maybe I expected too much, but I genuinely have a hard time understanding how people can say it’s one of their favorite books ever. To each their own, I could be crazy.
I had to force myself to finish it.
It’s been a while since I read it but I remember feeling super let down by the ending. I enjoyed it fairly well over all, but the entire book felt like it was building toward something that’d lead to a big pay off at the end and it just didn’t happen.
I really liked it as well as Sea of Tranquility – not a masterpiece but filled with memorable, emotion-rich passages
If you were looking for walking dead minus the zombies, yeah, this was not that book. I found the prose to be quite beautiful and the themes and plot to be incredibly moving and life-affirming. Survival…it is truly not sufficient.
I didn’t finish it, but that was more because I was on holiday at the time I think.
I think when i put it down I was feeling similarly to you, I just didn’t feel like it was even trying to tie up all the threads it was presenting. It all felt so languorous.
However, I read Sea of Tranquility recently and that absolutely knocked my socks off, so I might try again. SoT is similar in that it’s hard to see how everything is going to be related, but it is and its tied together really beautifully (if a little neatly).
I so think she’s maybe better seen as a “literary” writer who uses sci-fi elements rather than a sci-fi writer. I feel like The Walking Dead is the wrong frame of reference.
I loved how it explored the little details and their consequences. I’ll always remember the girl who ran out of antidepressants and then just disappeared.
I loved it.
It was my favourite book that year.
I read this book long before the actual pandemic happened. I live near one of the settings in the story, so I felt connected to it in that way. I found the entire premise of the story – the mix of a pandemic and a band of nomadic actors – so impossibly delightful. I loved the way Mandrel intertwined the characters’ lives. And I thought the prose was lovely.
I suggested this book to my book club. Only the sci fi aficionados in the group liked it. The rest did not and had comments similar to OP.
I am listening to it right now on Audible and I love it, I think it’s beautiful and really cleverly written.
I will admit, I bought it with no idea what it was about, but knowing that it was an award winning sci-fi novel, and it’s not exactly what I expected, but it’s still sad and lovely and I have been recommending it a lot.
I really loved it. An apocalypse story that focuses on the beauty of life and art.
I also thought the HBO show was exceptional. Different in how it plays out but equally magnificent and beautiful with the humanity it displays. The show is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. A lot of people criticized it since ‘nothing happens’ in it, but that’s also the point. It’s not the walking dead, it’s not an apocalypse story, it’s a story about life, beauty and art, after an apocalypse.
I get your complaints, but I don’t agree with them personally.