Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Alone With You in the Ether: Waterstones Exclusive Edition

The story shows the struggles of two people who don't feel like they fit in with the rest of the society. The story is at times challenging to understand –it has many very complex subjects and issues depicted in it – but the narration complements this perfectly and makes it more understandable as a whole. I really enjoyed the audiobook experience of listening to this. The narration and the audiobook's narrator's performance are what impressed me most in this book.

The audiobook's narration is a little unorthodox: it matches the characters mind in a creative and very depictive way. The book's narration is in the third person, sometimes coupled with explicitly named external narrator's sidenotes with different narrator's voices. The female main character Reagan has mental illness which's treatment includes therapy and medication; the latter she wants to forgo. The male main character Aldo struggles with interpersonal relationships and often finds himself drifting off to his own thoughts. Both of them have gone through very dark times, and they share them with each other.

These chaotically organized minds of the characters are reflected with the narration, and this has nuances with chapters focalized by different characters. Regan is very impulsive and thrives in chaos; the chapters in her pov are told with a rushed pace, sometimes multiple voices speaking at the same time. Her chapters revolve around Regan's feelings of the events around her and those are what dictate her interactions with the world. Aldo is very organized and relies on patterns and stability. His pov chapters are more calmly paced, and the subjects are dissected with rationality. He is open to listening to other people as well.

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ajzou's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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breereads87's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Before I review, I must say I had no idea what to expect from this book. Half of the people who read called it pretentious drivel and the half called it hauntingly brilliant. I would say I’m in the latter half of thought. I took my time reading it. Aldo and Reagan are two people who shouldn’t work or cross spaces; a liar and a man obsessed with the hidden truths of time. They foster a relationship through communication and attempts at understanding that is devastatingly lyrical. I listened the audiobook in tandem with the book and that creates a much better experience for this book.

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abhirupa's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book felt like a novel length tiktok slideshow of those fake deep tumblr text posts with Phoebe Bridgers’ Stranger in the Alps playing in the background. I love those slideshows! And I liked a lot of the passages in this book! Some of the passages in this book were heartbreaking and lyrical and gorgeous! But page after page of Halsey-lyric prose is not enough to hold my attention and that might just be a me thing because this book came highly recommended. Another book that would’ve been better as a short story.

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claireisagrisha's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Regan was a complex individual, as was Aldo. Regan's journey with mental health, and how it influenced her art, was truly beautiful, paralleling the way a writer creates books. There is great depth to Regan's character. Aldo is well-described, and he has a strong affection for bees. He also has an interest for math. (Personally, I'm not a fan of math.)

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nikogatts's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I swore off this author after a disappointing experience with one of her earlier books, but a friend suggested I give Alone With You in the Ether a try and I'm glad I listened to her. Olivie Blake's strengths are clearly in character work, so a contemporary setting with a couple of characters turned out much better than the seven-plus characters and underdeveloped fantasy world of The Atlas Six.

I would characterize this book like I characterize Wuthering Heights (a famous line from which is paraphrased in Part 6 of Ether): not as a romance, but as a love story between two mentally unwell, deeply insufferable people. Alone With You in the Ether is the story of Regan and Aldo and the process through which they fall into an all-consuming love. The author does not shy away from the main characters' insecurities, unhealthy fixations, challenging family dynamics, or cycles of toxicity; instead, these behaviors and relationships are portrayed with the type of honesty that more people should utilize in real life. As their relationship solidifies, Aldo and Regan's bad habits interact -- not being amplified, not disappearing, but coexisting in a way that seems to suit both parties. It would be almost romantic if I didn't find the people involved just so exhausting and their mutual love a bit scary in its obsessiveness. Like with Cathy and Heathcliff, I don't like either of these characters, but their story was compelling.

The one theme that irked me was Regan's relationship to (and avoidance of) psychiatric help. I understand that the author of this book has a similar mood disorder and, like Regan, chooses to live without medication, and she states in the afterword that she's not advocating for others to make the same choice. But I went down a path similar to Regan's when I was younger, believing that it was more "authentic" and creatively freeing to not take medication, that medicating my anxiety and depression was somehow suppressing and stifling me. Eventually, I realized that emotions being "authentic" doesn't make them healthy, and I was able to function much better once I found a medication that worked for me. So while I acknowledge where this part of the story originated, it still rubbed me the wrong way and I'm glad that (without spoiling anything) Regan's approach to her treatment kind of evens out by the end of the book.

I gave this a 3 (point 25-ish) for the above reasons, and because the writing, while good from sentence to sentence, dragged on in some places. The conversations in third person were the worst -- while it's an interesting play on back-and-forth dialogue, it got irritating when the "talking" went on for pages.

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kimzeyk's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Beautifully written, even while I found it somewhat anxiety-inducing being inside of the characters’ heads.

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