Abby's blog

  “You must be immune,” Jeevan said. “Yes.” Ben stared fixedly into the flames. “I’m the luckiest man alive, aren't I”(192)? I found this quote very sad because I couldn’t even imagine what this man went through. He had to watch everyday as his loved ones died and all he could do was sit there and watch, waiting for himself to eventually to die but then he never did. I wonder when he finally realized he was immune and wasn’t going to die? It made me think about what I would do in that situation. If I watched my loved ones die one by one, I don’t think I would be able to live another day knowing they wouldn’t be there for me or anyone for that fact. I would literally be alone and I’m sure Ben thought about this too. But I find Ben to be the strongest person in the book because he had the strength to fight through and keep walking like Jeevan did. “Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking”(Mandel 194) I use this quote in one of the next questions but I really found this quote super i...

  If I were to create a perfect community I would name it Little Grove. It would be a small little community where there is a mayor running the town with others always helping. There would be a centerpiece of the town where all celebrations would be held and everyone would come together and enjoy themselves. There would be a small high school where everyone knew each other and there would never be arguments because everyone was friendly and kind. There would be a restaurant that everyone would go to to eat and have fun. There would also be a community of cats that everyone would feed and take care of while letting them roam around carefree. The town would make the shape of a circle that builds around this centerpiece as said before, where neighborhoods, stores, the school, etc, all surrounded this one thing. A garden. But not a simple flower garden, a garden with a grand gazebo where festivities and celebrations take place while also used for simple gatherings of the town's people....

  In what ways do you think the motto "Survival is Insufficient" fits for the Traveling Troupe? They perform A Midsummer's Night Dream, a play that it turns out Shakespeare wrote during the great plague in Europe. Are there other parallels you see between the play and the story?  I think the quote fits because not only surviving is going to help the group keep pushing through these hard times but enjoying their time and having fun with each other for example the performances and the acting. I think it is a big reason why they have made it so far and long. I’m not entirely familiar with the play A Midsummer’s Night dream but from the book I can tell there is much change in emotions and perspectives throughout the story and that connects with station eleven because people have gone through such a life changing moment and have had to learn how to change their beliefs and ways of living.  In section two, the novel leaps ahead twenty years following the Georgian Flu. How has l...

   “Jeevan was crushed by a sudden certainty that this was it, that this illness Hua was describing was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life”(Mandel 19).  This passage surprised me because I understood what Jeevan meant when he said the line of life before and after, it was like life before the COVID-19 pandemic and after it—the sudden shift the world goes through is like something you've never experienced until it happens, like Jeevan said in the beginning about being crushed by a sudden certainty. Every person who lived through the coronavirus pandemic can fully describe what life was for them before, during, and now after the pandemic. Jeevan mentioned the division of time and it really is like a line in our lives that just all of a sudden split the moment in history. “In response, there was only a muffled sound. Hua was coughing. “‘Are you sick ?’” Jeevan was pushing the cart towards the door. “‘Good night, Jeevan’”(Mande...

  Why do you feel dystopian novels (which envision a future where the world has gone wrong) are a trending genre in fiction? What are some other dystopian books you have read? In this short article found on NPR, what are some of the reasons teenagers find the dystopian genre captivating and what do brain experts have to say about it? https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/12/18/536007249/why-teens-find-the-end-of-the-world-so-appealing At first I honestly really didn’t know why the dystopian novels amd genres were so popular. I did know why I really liked them and I realized I think it's because we as teenagers, who are usually casted or illustrated in the books as also teenagers are able to envision a different life and new fantasy where we are able to live during those times and go through these different life changing catastrophes. For example Divergent. Divergent is about a world where the people are split up into four different factions.  And each of those fractions are uni...