I'm a sucker for big, over the top speculative fiction, but I confess that I've been experiencing some dystopia fatigue. So many of the novels I read seemed to follow the same patterns that I was starting to get burned out on the entire genre. Enter Station Eleven, a thoughtful, eloquent, and decidedly grown up dystopian novel. I put off reading it for far too long because the blurb I read indicated that this was a book about a Shakespearean theater troupe wandering a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Ignore that description-- this book is so much more. Station Eleven alternates between the past and the present, and the two stories are linked in a way that you won't fully understand until the very end. This is exactly the book I needed to read to remind me of why I love this genre so much. 
 Things I loved about Station Eleven: 
 - This is a dystopian novel that is genuinely character-driven. Yes, there was a plague that wiped out most of the human race, but that's not the focus here. It's all about human relationships and how the survivors cope with the reality of their situation. The present day story reminds me of the early issues of The Walking Dead comic series (before it turned into torture porn)-- harsh and unflinching, but not without hope. 
 - "Survival is insufficient." +1 for a Voyager reference, +2 for a Seven of Nine quote. 
 - The significance of the wrist tattoos. 
 - I desperately want Miranda's Station Eleven comic/labor of love to be a real thing that I can actually read. 
 Things I did not love: 
 - The cult subplot. I feel like the post-apocalyptic religious nut job trope is overplayed, even though it did end up tying into the story in a meaningful way. 
 - I would have liked to see the Arthur-V. connection fleshed out a little more. 
 If I could give half stars this would be a 4 1/2 star book, but since I can't, I'm making the executive decision to bump it up to 5 stars. If you enjoy literary fiction with a dystopian twist, check this one out-- you won't regret it!