Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Alone with You in the Ether

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Alone with You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

79 reviews

teslis's review against another edition

emotional reflective 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

2.0

I had heard so much good about this book and sadly it didn't live up to the hype. It's (sorry) quite a boring book. The two main characters both deals with some mental problems and after meeting they decides to hangout and thats the book.

While reading this book did I get a thought. I believe you will like this book if you like "Normal Peopel" by Sally Rooney then you will probably like this one. Those two books are both similar but also not. It's hard to explain, but I didn't like either so (?).

Don't remember much of the book when I write this :(

Took me 8 hours and 26 minuts.

Content Warnings

catching5tars's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

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lucielockettreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark fast-paced

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

1.5

I feel bad for rating it so low because it might just be the writing style that doesn’t work for me, but I did not enjoy this book.

There were snippets I read and it did feel deep and philosophical, as though Blake herself was peering into my soul and wrote the words on paper. Then all the other parts, they just… muddled together. I started skipping pages and pages of waffle which of course is charlottes mania. But the message to do with mental health therapy and TAKING MEDICATION I hated. I study psychology and counselling at university and there is absolutely in my mind a support for therapy, and sometimes medical intervention where therapy is not effective enough, this story says screw therapy and screw my meds!

I understand that the FMC is bipolar and maybe that’s why she never bought it up but the therapist should of saw them signs earlier.

Also aldo and his father are a wonderful story and I actually enjoyed it mostly when they were talking to each other

Also also, sex doesn’t heal everything!!!!!!

TLDR; not my type of genre, which I learnt through reading this, and the writing style… some good moments but a lot was not, although that does relate to the FMC personality.

Check trigger warnings.

Content Warnings

aileron's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

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

1.0

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jbellomy's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

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

3.0

Torn. The more I think about it, the more I dislike it -- it's like if an early 2010s NLOG watched Garden State and thought, "hey, I bet I could make that angstier." The messaging is icky, the format is needlessly convoluted (form following function? Olivie Blake could NEVER), the dialogue in the first half is so so stilted and offensively twee. The male lead literally does the Augustus Waters thing, but instead of a cigarette, it's a joint that he *doesn't* smoke! (OKAY FINE he does it for a different reason. But in the acknowledgements Blake states that the first image she had of the character was ~a guy who's not smoking the joint he's holding~ and I'm like girl. You obviously watched/read The Fault in Our Stars and the most iconic, silly, parodied-to-death character quirk stuck in your brain and eventually your subconscious convinced you the idea was yours. HOW did no editor catch this. HOW.) (I know it was originally self published but dear god why didn't someone take this out of the final version.) However. There were some moments I really loved (e.g. the church scene kicked absolute ass). It's interesting that most of the negative reviews praise the first half of the book, but I much preferred the latter half. Blake captures the early throws of romantic obsession so well. There were scenes that fully transported me back to my high school relationship, which is wild since these characters are in their mid-late 20's, and, judging by the ending, Blake does not seem to be aware that their relationship is dangerously codependent. Troubling, but what can you do? They're so misunderstood and unique and they simply must let their freak flags fly/ignore all other flags, namely red ones, and dive head first into their all-consuming love! Seriously though, Regan and Aldo think they're hot shit because they've got quirky names and they're malnourished insomniacs and they're mentally ill and have special interests -- like half the book is them saying to each other how different from the rest of the world they both are -- but has anyone told them about the internet?? We're all in the DSM here. Maybe you're not different. Maybe one of you is just kind of rude, and one of you is just kind of mean, and that's fine, but it is not aspirational or romantic. BUUUUT at the same time, *I'm* a kind of rude, kind of mean, mentally ill obsessive freak, and I also get even more insane when I fall in love with someone, so, like, relatable content I guess.* I was an early 2010s tumblr NLOG. And I kinda like Garden State. I'm not going to read the Atlas Six because I cannot stand another second of Olivie Blake's clumsy pontificating about bees or math or philosophy or time or whatever she thinks will make her self-inserts sound smart, but I'm not leaving this book with 100% negative feelings. Tl;dr no regrets about having read this; would not recommend to anyone I respect.

*Regan is out here representing the neurodivergent trust fund babies who are fully incapable of holding down a real job. Though I do not approve of her male manipulator ways, gotta appreciate the rep. She just like me for real.

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clairew97's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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joaura's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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

5.0

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nataliebootlah's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I devoured this book in just over a day.

At the beginning, I wasn’t so sure that I would enjoy this book, but a few more chapters in I couldn’t put it down. This truly is a brilliant portrayal of the realities of falling in love, mental illness, and two broken people coming together. It’s a love story, but not really. It’s hope, time, space. Bees, hexagons, math, art. The complexity of connection and the grief of loss.
It will most definitely make you feel the feels.

This book does not shy away from the fact that neither Regan nor Aldo are well. It showcases their mental health, codependency, and perhaps their unfavorable personality traits without judgement, which was wildly refreshing.

Alone With You in the Ether is not for everyone, but damn, it really left its mark on me. 🐝

Content Warnings

greatestheights's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

Ooof. Yeah, this was not for me, although I really thought it might be for a hot second! Part of the problem might be that I chose audio, but by the last third of the book, I knew it was also the lack of plot. I agree with another review noting that this was clearly a labor of love for the author, and I appreciate her explicitly stating that pills are not bad in her author's note — because the whole book basically seems to be trying to say the opposite of that. I have complex feelings about meds and treatment, but Regan truly needed them, and the book seems to argue that she was better off without them. Pretty tired of that trope, which feels a bit 2007 for me to be reading in 2023.

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lindseyas's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

This was a tough book to get through in multiple senses of the term. The prose, while beautiful and spellbinding and fitting the scene and characters perfectly, was pretty uppity and unsuitable for a proper reading experience. I found myself spending more time trying to decipher what the characters and narration was trying to say than actually paying attention to the plot of the novel. But, I think that Blake's niche: fluffy, flowery language that shows off what a great author she is to ask the flaws of her characters. And, in fact, these characters were pretty flawed. I think there is no one out there that can judge either one of these characters when they are inspired by Blake's own struggle with bipolar disorder, herself and medication/therapy — there's just no way to do that. I can't help but say that I see a lot of myself in Aldo: putting my problems aside to be the caretaking companion, even though it sometimes just breaks you down. I think the character study was pretty masterful in the book, but my GOD did the writing style make this a tough lesson to crack.

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