Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (audiobook)

genre: adult fiction

It's hard to imagine what such a day would be like - the day when you realize that the way you've always been able to live is done.  That the high-speed, small-world, convience-ready world you've grown up in has shuttered to a halt.  But when a flu explodes on our planet and the majority of human life dies in an incredibly short period, there really isn't any other choice but to believe it.  What will be left of us, when most of us die? What will the survivors choose to keep and remember, sustaining if they can, and what will become the stuff of legend and myth?

I loved how this book answered that question.

While sometimes it meandered a bit much - it gets four stars from me instead of five because sometimes it just moved a little too slow - there was also a lot to appreciate from this story.  I really liked that it was so character driven, we follow several different characters from pre-flu life into post-flu life and the things they remember and learn and experience are essentially the plot of the book, if you can call that a plot. There is a LOT of flipping back and forth in time, which could get obnoxious if that bothers you.  Once I got used to it, I really liked seeing where people connected, where small moments ended up mattering so much in a future world that no one could imagine.  I liked Station Eleven as a plot device (no spoilers from me :) but I think what I liked most was the fact that it really made me think about what I take for granted.  It really made me think about if all the "modern" of my life fell away and I had to someday teach my grandchildren about what my own experience was like, what would matter enough to share?  What ideas are so thoroughly foreign and useless in an essentially medieval world that it only makes you sad to remember it?  Very interesting food for thought.

This isn't an action story. It's a meandering look at a world that is so easy to believe could be real.  It's a deep and hard look at beauty and creating and finding what is worth surviving for.  The art-and-theater-and-museum lover in me really appreciated that theme.   A great listen.


note: if you're interested in the content of the books I read, please go to http://ratedreads.com

World War Z by Max Brooks

genre: adult zombie fiction :)

Yes, this is a zombie book.  And I listened to it.  No judging.

I downloaded this particular audiobook because I had just watched the movie with my husband (didn't love it but was entertained enough) when my brother in law told me that the recorded book had won an Audie Award.  He told me it was full cast and when I looked at the cast list, I decided to try it.  Here is why, if I am completely honest:

Nathan Fillion.

He reads one of the chapters.

Yes, just one, but OH that was a thrill. NATHAN!  READ TO ME MORE!

Okay, so I started it for Nathan but I finished it because I enjoyed it.

World War Z is an oral history of the Zombie War.  The author "interviews" people from all sections of society, all cultures, to preserve for the future personal stories of the war that brought live human beings to the brink of extinction.  He speaks with politicians, soldiers, priests, doctors and just regular people who played a unique role in the conflict.  What I particularly loved about this audiobook, and why I think it deserves 4 stars, is the fantastic job of casting.  I'm sure reading it would have been fine, but to have all the different accents and varied cadences of speech really made it such an interesting listen.

Their stories are so varied, it was always a bit exciting to see where our next location would be and what kind of person we would meet.  A blind Japanese warrior, a Chinese submariner, a South African citizen, an American dog-handler, a Russian cleric, a Pakistani refugee.  Each person's viewpoint is unique and adds another piece to the supposed history.  Only a few characters share more than once, one in particular is very foul-mouthed but his story WAS one of the most interesting, since as a soldier he was on the very front lines.  Much of the book is a military history but not so much that it stopped being interesting to me.

The history of the war is rich and complex - I think the author does a fine job of making it JUST realistic enough that you almost believe that there is actually a possibility of this happening.  And after you finally cross over that edge, you have to keep reminding yourself THERE ARE NO ZOMBIES.  I let myself go along for the ride.   I believed in the Zombie War.  And if you can get me to do that, Max Brooks, you did a pretty good job.



note: if you're interested in the content of the books I read, please go to http://ratedreads.com

Review: Life as We Knew It. by Susan Beth Pfeffer

book 4 of 4 for the It's The End of the World 2009 Challenge
book 5 of 12 for the YA Challenge 2009
genre: ya/apocalypitc
rating: 5/5

I've read many post-apocalyptic books - books that take place long after some sort of giant disaster that has changed the way the world and everyone on it functions. While I am a huge fan of these books, I am an even bigger fan of apocalyptic books - the ones where we actually watch the characters who are in the thick of that disaster - the ones where the characters have to cope with, first of all, not dying in the initial tragedy, but also coming to grips with the new "real" that exists afterwards.

Life As We Knew It is one of these second kind of books. High schooler Miranda and the rest of the world are excited about the fact that an asteroid is going to hit the moon - what an event! Except, no one counted on the impact knocking the moon out of its orbit, and the resulting changes on the earth make for some pretty apocalyptic times. Crazy tides, wild weather - and survival is the name of the game. Miranda's life in a remote suburb gives them more options than most and the fact that she's got a tight-knit family surrounding her to help out makes a big difference, too.

The story is told through Miranda's diary and the author got her tone and "teenage-ness" just right. Her frustrations and concerns, so limited to her small circle of experience, felt authentic - as did all the disastrous happenings - I just believed it all. To be completely truthful, this book scared the pants off me, its terrifying plausibility made me want to run to the store and buy them out of canned goods and firewood. It's horrifying to imagine what we would really all do in such a situation, what resources we would have to help us to survive. I couldn't put this book down and the only real problem with Life As We Knew It is that once you've started reading it, you can't get it out of your head.

Review: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

book 2 of 4 for the It's the End of the World Reading Challenge II
book 2 of 5 for the Classics Challenge 09
Genre: post apocalyptic fiction
Rating: 5/5

What if the tension between the USSR and America in the 50s ended less peacefully, maybe involving exploding warheads and a nuclear holocaust? How would the common American rural town cope in such a situation?

Such a situation is at the heart of Alas, Babylon. The tiny town of Fort Repose, Florida, manages to survive the initial onslaught - but moving forward in world suddenly transformed into the dark ages proves to be an even bigger challenge. Florida itself is beautifully described and its bounty and climate plays an essential role as haven and provider. Our main characters are just normal people, flawed yet with untapped strength that catastrophe and necessity bring to the forefront. Other characters, of course, use the disaster to get gain, prey on those who have supplies, or live in denial until it's too late.

More interesting than the characters though, for me, is just the situation they found themselves in and how they got inventive about making life work again. That part was certainly the most intriguing. When Frank switched to the more military side of things my interest waned a bit, but those parts didn't usually last long. I think, perhaps, that Fort Repose was almost a bit too spared - sometimes there seemed to be a few too many good coincidences, but I liked it that way. It's hard to have a story about a town's survival if everyone gets horrendous radiation sickness :)

This book is amazing because it felt completely plausible - it's quite a wake up call, I can imagine it scaring the pants off of people in the 60s, realizing how easily fiction could've become fact. The science felt authentic and the military side of it did too (as far as I could tell). I read this book in essentially one sitting, it was that good.

Review: The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

book 4 of 12 for the Young Adult Challenge 09
genre: young adult speculative/apocalyptic fiction
rating: 5/5

A new age is upon the earth. After the Flood, the planet was reborn as a series of Islands, looked after by the glorious Earth Mother. She has created a calm and safe world, where anything inaccurate or unpredictable is a thing of the past.

For Honor, though, her life isn't as simple. The weather is much more predictable than her parents, who aren't as conscientious about following the rules as they should be. As Honor grows up, she has to decide to either fit in with everyone else or doubt the reality she's been taught by a society that prizes conformity above nearly everything else.

This book was stellar. I never wanted to put it down - the culture itself was a fascinating slippery slope from our modern environmental and peace-loving desires. The writing kept my attention, wasn't predictable and the characters were fleshed out enough to surprise me sometimes. I dearly hope there is another to follow.

review: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

book 6 of 10 for the Book Awards II Challenge (Pulitzer Prize)

rating: 5/5
genre: post-apocalyptic fiction

This is a heavy, beautifully written story. Life on earth has essentially ended due to some undefined human-provoked catastrophe. All we know is the results - a dead, gray earth. Gray ash covering everything, gray water and gray snow. Even now, in my mind, the entire book is like life with all color removed.

There are very few characters, really only two that we know anything about. And of these two, we don't even know their names. The are "the man" and "the boy." These two together are traveling "the road." The road isn't any specific road and it doesn't really lead anywhere - they are just going toward where they hope it will be warmer and where maybe there are some other of the "good people," as the boy calls them. Their life is a dreary struggle to have food, be warm and stay safe. It's a bleak existence but the conversations between the son and the father add a welcome respite from and addition to their journey.

There is much that is disturbing along the road. Very disturbing. Images that maybe will never leave my mind. Thankfully, beneath the surface, there is more than just death. What is beautiful about this book, to me, is first and foremost the relationship between the man and the boy. The man is a loving, patient and protecting father. His love of his son and desire to somehow eke out a space for them on our dead planet made my heart ache. I tried to put myself in that situation and to live that way alone is one thing. A horrible thing, to be sure, but it's a completely different kind of suffering than to have to make your way with a child. To have to hide your fear and frustration, to not just find safety for and food for one but two. The character of "the boy" is what made this book an amazing read to me - he saw the world and their lot with such different eyes than his father, who had known what the world was before it was gray and lifeless. His grace and goodness made this an amazing story.