Going into Station Eleven, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be my cup of tea. I don’t do dystopian fiction, anything to do with a pandemic is a big turn-off right now, and, frankly, I just wanted to get the book finished so I could move on and watch the TV show.

It was slow-going at first: I enjoyed the sections about the King Lear performance, but I really did not care for the sections featuring the Traveling Symphony. I frequently found myself wanting to get to characters who weren’t Kirsten and see their perspective of this new world.

But as I kept reading, that was exactly what the book delivered. All the characters I wanted to hear from were represented, and around halfway through I found I really was actually invested in the Traveling Symphony sections as well. Many of the loose ends come together at the end, but not so many that made me feel like it was all tied up too neatly; there’s still much to ponder after the book closes, and I’ve found myself doing just that.

Even if you’re looking at the words “dystopia” and “pandemic” and thinking this isn’t the read for you, I’d encourage you to read it anyway. At its heart, it’s a story about people and characters, and that is exactly the kind of read I look for. I still haven’t watched the TV show, and after hearing it strays from the book pretty significantly, I’m thinking I probably don’t want to. But that’s okay–the book is so much more than I’d hoped for, and I’m very glad to have read it.