hauntingly beautiful

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I read a fair few books, but I rarely write reviews of them. I believe that reviews are somewhat pointless, whether they be for books, films or other creative art, like photography or paintings. The person viewing the art comes at it with their own personal preconceived ideas, their own morals and ethics, their own view of the world at large. Your beauty may not be my beauty. My pain may not be your pain. I cannot say that you must read this book. I am unable to state that reading this book will change your life. I will not tell you that to not read this book would be the worst choice you ever make. I can say that I LOVED this book, and this may be enough for you to want to get it out of the library the next time you're passing, or pick it up if you see it in a charity shop. It's a hauntingly beautiful tale of a post-apocalyptic world, a web of characters suffering their own demons, both in this new world and the old world. A mishmash of time, hope, dreams, betrayal, lust, love, survival, religion, skeletons both literal and imagined ... survival is insufficient How would we survive in this world? No electricity, no internet, no running water or tinned food or washing machines or petrol or clothes that come to us by child exploitation or travel or exotic holidays or Candy Crush or Facebook or this or that or the other ... A Museum of Civilisation and a travelling symphony keep the old world alive in this tale, twenty years after a flu virus wiped out 99.9% of the world's population. And despite the story being sad, there is a glimmer of faint hope at the end. Very faint, but still a glimmer. Because survival is insufficient ... it isn't enough for the long term. Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel. Beautiful. Real. Hopeful.