Books: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Started: 1/19/22
Finished: 2/2/22
Pages: 352
Goodreads Shelves: apocalyptic; post-apocalyptic

Intimate and curiously interwoven stories about life, how it inexplicably tangles up, and how important and difficult choices are. A bit slow sometimes but always interesting. A character piece set smack in the middle of the end times.

Without a traditional plot, its almost like reading a narrative history of events fleshed out through the lives of people. Elegant is a good word, quiet. A more literary version of World War Z or Robopocalypse minus the official UN documents. I liked the opaque nature of parts of the stories. Things happened and no one understands exactly what why or how. The characters, as happens in real life, are forced to make up their meaning ... the meaning of their lives and their existence, who they are as they go along. In true fashion, its all anyone can ever do.

It was easy to read and there were an abundance of characters and POVs. I liked the time slips so that the world before and after are explored along an adjacent narrative through line. My biggest critique is that the plotty aspect of the ending is more than a bit anti climatic. The plotty aspect of the ending is also, in the end, the least interesting and the least important thing about the book. A solid read and a good start to the 2022 reading challenge.

Books: Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

Started: 2/6/22
Finished: 2/6/22
Pages: 288
Goodreads Shelves: fiction - historical; poc-author

I usually have rage with books like Yellow Wife. I don't read them often as a result. Revisiting my historical trauma isn't my jam these days, but it has gotten so many rave reviews I decided to give it a go. Oddly, I had no rage. Oddly, I didn't feel much of anything. The events of the story were as horrific as expected, but there was something in the delivery that I found disconnected. It might have been the amount of time covered in the book. For the timespan, the book is rather short. Johnson is a capable and engaging author, but I didn't experience the same emotion that comes for me with these stories. The Book of Negros by Lawrence Hill was the last similar historical fiction that I attempted and I gave the book away after maybe three chapters in. It triggered alot.

Yellow Wife is worth reading. It has an interesting nuance and perspective into the complexity inherent in the lived trauma of some enslaved women. The idea of consent is addressed in a way that I haven't seen before and that makes it worth the read. What do you do for survival? What do you do for the survival of your children when options are limited? The characters feel a little flat with a few exceptions, so that may be where I'm feeling the disconnect.

I can't say that it was especially good or bad, but definitely, for me, did not live up to the hype.