Name: Aina's review of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken
Item: It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over
Rating: 2
Author: Aina

Anne de Marcken

Co-winner of the 2022 Novel Prize, this incredible life-after-death novel asks us to consider how much of our memory, of our bodies, of the world as we know it -- how much of what we love can we lose before we are lost? And then what happens?

It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over

Rachel Livingston

I continue west. I know you will not be there in the dunes. Except that I will be there. I will be there and through me you will be there. I think, if I am in the place where we were together, then we are together again. 

“Completely obsessed with Anne De Marcken’s experimental, deeply moving quasi-zombie novel. Broke me out of a reading rut I’d been in for a long time, reminded me why we write. Finished it in two days. Run don’t walk.” - Rebecca tamás

Aina

 becoming a self-aware, undying zombie who can’t help but remember what she forgets, be drawn to an intangible past, and forced to keep moving to a future of emptiness. Already armless, heartless, memory-less, crow-less, headless, what does one do when the only thing that drives you, the need to satiate a never-ending, gnawing hunger (which is just another term for grief), is also taken away along the way?

There is no better way to tell a story about grief than through a poetic prose, full of yearning, dismemberment, and horror, which all leads to the belly of the gentlest monster there is.

frances

[borrowed from the library]

New fear unlocked: becoming a self-aware, undying zombie who can’t help but remember what she forgets, be drawn to an intangible past, and forced to keep moving to a future of emptiness. Already armless, heartless, memory-less, crow-less, headless, what does one do when the only thing that drives you, the need to satiate a never-ending, gnawing hunger (which is just another term for grief), is also taken away along the way?

There is no better way to tell a story about grief than through a poetic prose, full of yearning, dismemberment, and horror, which all leads to the belly of the gentlest monster there is.

 is simply a story about the afterlife: a zombie starts somewhere, eats some things, befriends a crow, and goes to some places. Most of the story, physically speaking, focuses on the idea of this zombie apocalypse by viewing how the undead cope, how the living adapt, and how the world quietly goes on. Along with this, mortality is always at the forefront of the narrator's mind, and the difference between her daily routine as living compared to her new undead routine.

However, the core theme (and what I found most interesting about this novel) is grief, and the loss of your self or your personal identity. The narrator has vague memories with no way to narrow in on who she knew, particular the "you" that she refers to in second person. The whole book is a back and forth of what she has lost, or at least what she has a sense of having lost but can't recall the details of 

 was lost, or how she had lost it. Only that her life is gone, and so are "you". She grieves the person she used to be, the person she used to be with, the life she was going to have, and the loss of her memory.

I had no idea what to expect going into this novel. I tried going in as blind as I could, so I half expected this to be set in hell or some other fantastical afterlife setting, but this is very clearly a dystopian Earth, which makes the narrator's wandering of settings feel so... haunted. Especially in the final chapter, which hit me like a brick wall.

Speaking of broken expectations, man this is book is depressing. I thought this would be some big philosophical thought experiment about what the afterlife might look like, but no! This had me BAWLING  

I also think it’s important to drive home just how weird this book is. This is a 120 page novella, and very little of the book is used for worldbuilding so you are really thrown straight into the absurdity of what’s going on and quickly have to accept the situation (much like the narrator does). Nothing makes sense... or maybe some parts do. And not just the absurdity of the story’s premise, but the writing style is also quite a literary reach. I think it’s fair to say that this is the dystopia genre at its most Lispector-esque.

Anyway, this is quite a long review. I adore this book and I cannot wait to reread it soon! okay bye <3  

smile

I wanted to grieve while I still had the solace of you.

On the surface, It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over is simply a story about the afterlife: a zombie starts somewhere, eats some things, befriends a crow, and goes to some places. Most of the story, physically speaking, focuses on the idea of this zombie apocalypse by viewing how the undead cope, how the living adapt, and how the world quietly goes on. Along with this, mortality is always at the forefront of the narrator's mind, and the difference between her daily routine as living compared to her new undead routine.

However, the core theme (and what I found most interesting about this novel) is grief, and the loss of your self or your personal identity. The narrator has vague memories with no way to narrow in on who she knew, particular the "you" that she refers to in second person. The whole book is a back and forth of what she has lost, or at least what she has a sense of having lost but can't recall the details of what was lost, or how she had lost it. Only that her life is gone, and so are "you". She grieves the person she used to be, the person she used to be with, the life she was going to have, and the loss of her memory.

I had no idea what to expect going into this novel. I tried going in as blind as I could, so I half expected this to be set in hell or some other fantastical afterlife setting, but this is very clearly a dystopian Earth, which makes the narrator's wandering of settings feel so... haunted. Especially in the final chapter, which hit me like a brick wall.

Speaking of broken expectations, man this is book is depressing. I thought this would be some big philosophical thought experiment about what the afterlife might look like, but no! This had me BAWLING  

I also think it’s important to drive home just how weird this book is. This is a 120 page novella, and very little of the book is used for worldbuilding so you are really thrown straight into the absurdity of what’s going on and quickly have to accept the situation (much like the narrator does). Nothing makes sense... or maybe some parts do. And not just the absurdity of the story’s premise, but the writing style is also quite a literary reach. I think it’s fair to say that this is the dystopia genre at its most Lispector-esque.

Anyway, this is quite a long review. I adore this book and I cannot wait to reread it soon! okay bye <3  

10/10

yasi

could I ever have guessed that a novel about the undead & the apocalypse would make it to my personal canon? no—but marcken's it lasts forever & then it's over is an unbelievably eloquent and disarming novel (if you can even call it that; this text is very much in the world of nelson's bluets) that gouges into the wound of grief, memory, and everything else that is strange, painful, and beautiful about being alive/dead/undead. breathtaking and elliptical, it lasts forever is a love letter to the metaphor and what language can move in the body when pushed beyond the limits of the page; so many moments in this short text marcken managed to crawl under my skin and straight into the hollow of my chest (I'm saying, yes, I cried to a zombie novel). I never want to read another novel that claims to be genre-bending or experimental if it does not do what marcken managed to do in 127 pages. shocking

biddy

really beautiful and absurd reflection on grief albeit a little tough to digest at points! but really beautifully written, i felt the yearn! 

Nat Wong

"It is not what Mitchem says or what Marguerite says. Not nothing. Not real or unreal. It is not simple emptiness. Not lack. Not want. Not hunger. It is not hunger. It is grief."

This book isn't about zombies or the apocalypse.

At first, I didn’t know what to think of It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over. It slipped past me, or rather, I passed through it, like walking through fog that’s made of breath and something unnamed. The language—yes, language more than plot—is abstract, but not empty. It disappears mid-sentence, something remembered just before forgetting.

As I read, I was struck, gently and suddenly, by its fragmented intimacy, the way it speaks in half-formed truths, the way it trusts silence more than conclusion. And yet, I found myself watching it from the outside, sometimes. Not entering, only observing. Like pressing my hand to a window warmed by sun, but not feeling the sun itself.

To read this book is to read with your skin, not your eyes. You have to be in a particular state: a pause between griefs, a blue hour when nothing insists on sense. Because its ache, so soft and unassuming, will otherwise drift past unnoticed. It whispers, and if you’re not already listening for something lost, something broken, you might not hear it at all.

Finally, this is a book shaped like grief—quiet, disorienting, impossible to hold all at once. Not dramatic, not explosive. Just that slow, accumulating ache. The kind that drifts in behind ordinary things, a cup, a gesture, a name you used to hear with love. It is poignant. And distant. And maybe that’s 

Rien

"It is not what Mitchem says or what Marguerite says. Not nothing. Not real or unreal. It is not simple emptiness. Not lack. Not want. Not hunger. It is not hunger. It is grief."

This book isn't about zombies or the apocalypse.

At first, I didn’t know what to think of It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over. It slipped past me, or rather, I passed through it, like walking through fog that’s made of breath and something unnamed. The language—yes, language more than plot—is abstract, but not empty. It disappears mid-sentence, something remembered just before forgetting.

As I read, I was struck, gently and suddenly, by its fragmented intimacy, the way it speaks in half-formed truths, the way it trusts silence more than conclusion. And yet, I found myself watching it from the outside, sometimes. Not entering, only observing. Like pressing my hand to a window warmed by sun, but not feeling the sun itself.

To read this book is to read with your skin, not your eyes. You have to be in a particular state: a pause between griefs, a blue hour when nothing insists on sense. Because its ache, so soft and unassuming, will otherwise drift past unnoticed. It whispers, and if you’re not already listening for something lost, something broken, you might not hear it at all.

Finally, this is a book shaped like grief—quiet, disorienting, impossible to hold all at once. Not dramatic, not explosive. Just that slow, accumulating ache. The kind that drifts in behind ordinary things, a cup, a gesture, a name you used to hear with love. It is poignant. And distant. And maybe that’s 

the point.

"The space between me and me is you. This is a mystery."

trin

“How small or altered or distant must a part of us be before it stops being a part of us? Does it ever?” / “I hold the crow in my hand. Do I have to let you go? Even you?”

shen

reread (2025)

“How small or altered or distant must a part of us be before it stops being a part of us? Does it ever?” / “I hold the crow in my hand. Do I have to let you go? Even you?”


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It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken

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