Station Eleven is, to some extent, about what it’s like to have survived after the end of the world. Even more so, though, it’s about how amazing it is to live in the world as we currently know it: a world where iPhones light up with messages from loved ones thousands of miles away, and we can respond to those loved ones instantaneously with a few taps of our fingers. It’s about the relationships we form and how they can develop and maybe fade away, and the lasting effect people can have on us – even those old friends whose emails we’ve long since stopped responding to.

Yes, the novel is set in a sort of dystopian future, a North America following a flu pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity and forced those who remain into a daily struggle for survival. These scenes are crafted as stirringly as anything else you’re likely to have ever read in any sort of dystopian novel. But it’s also about the fact, to quote the motto of the book’s group of protagonists (who are themselves quoting a line from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager) that “survival is insufficient.” The Traveling Symphony, as this band of wanderers calls themselves, is a group of musicians and actors that travels the ruined world giving performances of concerts and Shakespeare plays. Things take a dark turn, however, when they encounter a crazed “prophet” in one of the towns they pass through, and afterward begin disappearing, one by one.

The plot is not bad, for what it is,  but it’s the least interesting part of Station Eleven. What keeps you reading are the bonds you develop with the characters, the way you come to share their sense of amazement at having had the opportunity to live in the world before the flu – the world we live in right now. It’s a pretty amazing place! That’s an easy thing to forget. I’m certainly guilty of taking the many miracles and conveniences of daily life for granted. This book makes you stop doing that.