I found this book a bit challenging. There were chapters and passages I found very beautifully written and moving, but other parts that wandered and didn't fully connect back into the major narrative. Radtke opens with the death of a beloved uncle from a genetic heart condition, one that she likely also carries. Around this same time she made her first visit to an abandoned, ruined town. A certain melancholic and morbid fascination continued to draw her, over and over, to decayed places where human civilization seems to have collapsed altogether. At one of these sites she finds many photographs in plastic bags which she collects and brings home, thinking she might make some kind of found art project from them. She later learns that these were part of the memorial for a young photographer who passed away and that she has accidentally stolen his shrine. The second half of the book includes the collapse of her engagement and a lonely wander into and out of grad school as the author tries to figure out what to do with her life. How can she find meaning in a life so marked by impermanence?