A review by writingcaia
Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This book hooked me from the start with the amazingly beautiful writing and narrative, that so mirrored each character in each of their POVs, and thus I fell into the hole that was the psychological conundrums, obsessiveness and traumas of the two main characters Aldo Damiani and Charlotte Regan since their meeting at the Art Museum where Regan volunteers and where Aldo goes to enjoy the white noise of people while he obsesses with his studies of time travelling.
I felt like I was being held by the hand through the maze that was their meetings, their lives with their mental issues and prior problems, and the love that bloomed and burned.
It made me cry, laugh, and hurt for them.
Regan bipolar in a loop of unhealthy love relationships and familial trauma, living in avoidance of a true life and true dream, always in spite of all, and Aldo anti-social and depressive, living a disconnected life with only his father as an anchor to it.
How can love survive the mental problems of these two, the prior relationships and abandonments? My heart ached for them throughout and I truly could not see a happy ending, although I wanted it so much for them, Aldo wanted it, but did Regan, or was Aldo just another escape from her issues, another spoke on the wheel of her avoidance like the boyfriend she had when she met him?
Loved it so much I read it all in one day unable to stop until it finished at 5am.
After this one I’m craving to read all of Olivie Blake’s books, especially the standalone ones.
A truly candid love story that I wished had not ended.
I felt like I was being held by the hand through the maze that was their meetings, their lives with their mental issues and prior problems, and the love that bloomed and burned.
It made me cry, laugh, and hurt for them.
Regan bipolar in a loop of unhealthy love relationships and familial trauma, living in avoidance of a true life and true dream, always in spite of all, and Aldo anti-social and depressive, living a disconnected life with only his father as an anchor to it.
How can love survive the mental problems of these two, the prior relationships and abandonments? My heart ached for them throughout and I truly could not see a happy ending, although I wanted it so much for them, Aldo wanted it, but did Regan, or was Aldo just another escape from her issues, another spoke on the wheel of her avoidance like the boyfriend she had when she met him?
Loved it so much I read it all in one day unable to stop until it finished at 5am.
After this one I’m craving to read all of Olivie Blake’s books, especially the standalone ones.
A truly candid love story that I wished had not ended.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Sexual content, and Drug use
Moderate: Addiction
Minor: Death of parent and Suicidal thoughts