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asks how much of yourself you can lose before you are lost”. this book had made such an impact on me. as i experience loss and grief for the first time in my life, marcken incredibly illustrates this strange spooky story of the perspective of the undead, and what thoughts and feelings arise within that world. tucked into 123 pages lies a story like no other story ive read before. this angelic yet haunting book must be read. if you want a confusing yet profound story that leaves you wondering wtf you just read, read this. and then read it again and again.
1d ago
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A widowed mother in her forties goes on a trip to a cabin in the Austrian mountains and wakes up one morning to find that she is trapped there by an invisible dome. She is alone, save for a few animals who are the other characters in the story. Everything outside of the dome is dead, their corpses frozen in the positions in which they suddenly passed. A coffee cup halfway to their lips, dogs curled at their feet. The book is written as a log of her years in the dome, on the final pieces of paper she can find in her cabin. The result is an extended soliloquy that jumps between the past and present to account a life shed of time and societal expectation and instead ruled by the rhythms of nature and the necessity to care for herself and her animal companions.
I read it this year, have already done a reread, and I still want to read it again after typing this out! It’s surrealism lite and an ecofeminist meditation on death, isolation, memory, and the nature of reality. Can’t recommend it enough!
“But if time exists only in my head, and I'm the last human being, it will end with my death. The thought cheers me. I may be in a position to murder time. The big net will tear and fall, with its sad contents, into oblivion. I'm owed some gratitude, but no one after my death will know I murdered time. Really these thoughts are quite meaningless. Things happen, and, like millions of people before me, I look for meaning in them, because my vanity will not allow me to admit that the whole meaning of an event lies in the event itself.”
Dec 21, 2024
I picked up this book on a whim during my last book shop visit and after it reading it, it feels like fate. its a powerful story of surviving grief and trauma unlike any other I’ve come across. as an adult, it can be really difficult to understand why things that happened in your early childhood happened at all. this book really captures all of those complicated feelings.
Jan 21, 2025
This book is a chronicle of the author’s life in the year after her husband unexpectedly passes away while their daughter is in a coma. I also happened to read this at a time in my life when I had recently:
a.) gotten married
b.) learned a friend was dying
Seems like a bummer from the summary above, and the content is definitely heavy, but this book really spoke to me at a time in my life when I was feeling a little lost amidst some big life changes. I recommend it to a lot of my friends after they get married - there’s some really great reflections on how amazing it is to share your life with someone, and the ways that you’ll miss them when they’re gone.
I’d always enjoyed reading, but this was the first time that I experienced one of those magical moments when a piece of literature, a movie, etc. can line up perfectly with your life and help you work through some of the things that are happening to and around you.
Feb 20, 2025
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May 30, 2025
teen dream and bloom teleport me straight back into arizona in the backseat of my dads Subaru forester as I gazed out into the endless desert landscape. nothing feels quite as nostalgic as that
1d ago