Book Review: "Last Night in Montreal" by Emily St John Mandel

You've probably heard of "Station Eleven", Emily St John Mandel's incredibly popular (and incredible) book that got all of the book blogs and book people talking. The book that we are talking about today was actually written and released before S11 and so everyone who read this book knew how special ESJM was before all the rest of us suckers. (Yeah, we're going to be doing a lot of abbreviations I think in this review).

I don't want to talk about the book because I walked into it knowing almost nothing about it, and it made for a really fresh/no expectations reading experience and I want that to be the same thing for you. I'll just give you a brief outline.

A girl walks out of her house in the middle of a Canadian winter and is never seen by her mother again. She grows up crisscrossing the United States, teaching herself languages, never staying in one place for long. As a young woman she hasn't ever learned to stay in one place for long and leaves a string of hurt and sad people in her wake. (Sometimes she desperately wants to stay in places with these people but she just can't bring herself to physically do it). The story revolves around this girl with many names, people who love/d her, one person whose family is destroyed because of her and an ever watching presence that follows her for a lot of her life.

This is a book of obsessive personalities as well. Yikes.

I think ESTM writing style is consistent between this book at S11. She has this kind of wonderful, breezy quality to her writing that manages to still be substantial and impressive. I still can't think of a great way to describe it. I like her writing style very much. There we go, haha.

People say that this book might be better than S11. I think it's unfair to compare them that way because they are such dramatically different books. I personally would give a slight edge to S11 just because I like the realistic dystopian setting. But I think if you liked the interwovenness of S11 you'll also like it in this book. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars!

That's a pomegranate on a plate in case anyone is confused by that.