:INFO
Reading a Pandemic Novel After a Pandemic
I first read Station Eleven in 2016, four years before any of it felt relevant. Emily St. John Mandel wrote about a flu that kills most of humanity and the fragments of culture that survive. I reread it in 2022. The experience of reading a novel about a pandemic collapse while still processing a real one is something no review I had read prepared me for. The book had not changed. Everything else had.


:COUNTER.half
333 Pages
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2 Full Reads

:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Emily St. John Mandel]
Survival is insufficient.


:JOURNEY
Rereading Station Eleven
4 Arm's length
5 Hit differently
5 Destroyed me
3 Least favorite

:POLL
Did Station Eleven hit differently after 2020 for you?
Yes completely different experience
Somewhat, certain parts resonated more
About the same as before, I did not feel the shift
I read it for the first time after 2020 so I cannot compare