STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

How about another pandemic book to cap off another year with ours? Somehow written years before Covid hit, it’s an interesting look into an alternate universe where Covid was more deadly and society experienced a total collapse instead of just a moral one.

I loved how it created real nostalgia for the overlooked parts of our day-to-day. The stuff we don’t notice anymore and take for granted. Given how we can now relate to missing certain aspects of life in the before-times of 2019, this story is another exercise in appreciation and gratitude. You never know if tomorrow everything will change. We understand that notion today, but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference.

Connecting before and after the virus with characters tied to a famous actor’s death, it blends the drama of relationships with the trauma of a post-apocalyptic world. It wasn’t the story I expected when I started, and that was a good thing. It’s deep and imaginative and scarily believable. An easy classic, given a boost from the insanity of reality.