Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

The first time I started reading Station Eleven, I closed and returned it back to my shelf when I reached page 3. I tried it again a few days back and I’m glad I persisted.

The story loops around the past and the present and then back again. The very skillful plotting of Station Eleven gave way to knowing each character more and what the characters think of the others. It’s how these characters are related that made this book really interesting for me (and no zombie in sight!). Their stories fit together perfectly and it’s really fascinating to see them all fall into place.

This is an amazing read that I finished it asking myself do people ever realize life while they live it? Hmmm…

Station Eleven may have started in darkness but it ended with a beam of hope.

Favorite quotes:

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.”

“Survival is insufficient.”

“The more you remember, the more you’ve lost.”

“First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.”

“The beauty of this world where almost everyone was gone. If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people in it?”

Rating : 5/5 stars

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Book #39 – 2015 Reading Challenge – Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand

After reading Laura Hillenbrand’s book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption, I made sure to get my hands on Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Luckily, the guesthouse where I stayed at in Phnom Penh has a second-hand bookshop just in front of it. I wasn’t really expecting to find it there but TA-DA!!!

A fantastic piece of non-fiction.

This is the story of the almost unrecognized talented race horse, Seabiscuit (who happens to be a descendant of one of the greatest race horse, Man o’ War) and the people who came to work together to make history. It’s such a fantastic mix of an underdog story and wonderful writing. Hillenbrand writes what she needs to say in the simplest, smartest and most precise way and that is that.

I really enjoyed this book and would love to recommend it to everyone who hasn’t read it yet.

Favorite quotes : “His books were the closest thing he had to furniture and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs.”

“…maybe it was better to break a man’s leg than to break his heart.”

“It’s easy to talk to a horse if you understand his language. Horses stay the same from the day they are born until the day they die. They are only changed by the way people treat them.”

Rating : 5/5 stars