Bibliokitty

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is one of my favourite novels. It has been adapted into an excellent TV miniseries on HBO. It was published in 2014 and is about a pandemic (I think Emily St. John Mandel must be a bit prescient) that wipes out over ninety percent of Earth’s population, and how what is left of humanity lives on fifteen years after the pandemic. I enjoyed Sea of Tranquility almost as much as I enjoyed reading Station Eleven. Written during the COVID pandemic, Sea of Tranquility also features a pandemic, but the pandemic does not take centre stage. I would not classify Sea of Tranquility as dystopian or science fiction, even though part of the novel is set in the future when humans have colonized the moon and outer space; rather, it is a novel whose focus is on human nature and human relationships.

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The Secret History is Donna Tartt’s first novel and was published in 1992, but it is not the first novel of hers that I have read. I read her third novel, The Goldfinch, first, and I love The Goldfinch; however, if I had read The Secret History first, I probably would not have read The Goldfinch. The Secret History is a somewhat interesting novel, but I was surprised to find that there is not a single likeable character in it. The main characters are so insufferable, I almost stopped reading after a few chapters. But I hate to leave a book unfinished, and I was curious enough to know how this novel would end, so I persevered in reading.

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