Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Alone With You in the Ether

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

23 reviews

nineinchnails's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

this wasn’t as pretentious as i was expecting. it felt more like blake just used a few big words and flowery prose and it scared off a certain demographic but that’s just me! i really, really loved this. i don’t think it’s perfect but it came really close and scratched a very specific itch for me. it reminds me of normal people (one of my all-time favourite novels) a little but there wasn’t as much depth from aldo as there was with connell so i left this feeling slightly disappointed. the writing style is a little inconsistent but it could be intentional and it does work well for these characters + this story.

this story probably won’t work for people who can’t stand a “no plot just vibes” situation but i was loving it!! even if it is SLIGHTLY pretentious, i would rather a book tries too hard than doesn’t try at all. also i loved all the math stuff despite hating math most of my life. it feels like the phenomenon where someone u care about is obsessed with something super boring but it makes them happy so u love hearing them talk about it. i will definitely reread this when i get the chance because i don’t think i was in the mindset to enjoy it to the fullest this time

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nefariousbee's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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podanotherjessi's review against another edition

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challenging sad 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

2.75

I am convinced this is the perfect book for someone, but it is absolutely not me. I knew very quickly that I didn't really like this book, but I just couldn't seem to stop it. So I'll say one thing for this book, it is compulsively readable. You can't look away, much like a train wreck.
The one thing I really liked - and the main reason it's not much more lowly rated - was the writing style. It's like definitionally overwritten, but that works for me. I'm very glad the narrator interjections were dropped after part one. Once past that, the writing is really creative and conveys a lot about the characters.

Almost everything else I felt neutral about at best.
Regan feels like such a textbook manic pixie dreamgirl, but I can give this book some credit in that the story doesn't follow the stereotypical plot. But neither character felt like they grew at all in this story. They actually seem to regress, which can be great if it feels intentional, but in this book it felt like the reader was supposed to celebrate the self-destruction of the characters.
But that I could forgive. What I just can't get over in a book that advertises itself as a romance is a romantic pairing I don't root for. I hated this romance. It was incredibly toxic and never felt like love. It felt like obsession and infatuation and not meant to last. And worse, the book made it out that I was the problem. "If you think this is unhealthy, then you just don't get it" was all but said verbatim both in the novel itself and in Blake's author's note.

I do appreciate that not at the end overall. It's clear this is a very personal novel for Blake. But I just couldn't get over the flaws I saw. I didn't even start on the medication and therapy representation in the book. I think this will be a wonderful book for a lot of people, so I don't want to universally un-recommend it. But I just didn't like it much.

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crystalsbookshelf's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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

this book has touched me in the way that no other book has before. it was like looking into a mirror reflected into a mirror and on and on. olivie blake is a beautiful writer and her writing and characters feel real in a way that makes you never want to put the book down.

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katiesbeengone's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective 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

4.0

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embelle's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I don’t even know what to write for this review, as I still haven’t fully processed this book. I feel like I could read this book 5 times and still not be able to process it. I’m convinced that this book is unlike anything I’ve ever read before or anything that I’ll ever read in the future. Just wow wow wow. The Acknowledgements from Olivie Blake also totally had me in my feelings too

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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.

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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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gardens_and_dragons's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective 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

3.5

This book about two broken people learning how to love each other as the opposites as they are, but also about how they need to fix themselves so that their flaws don’t consume them each other whole.

The prose was AMAZING and had so many good quotes. I did find myself disliking Regan’s choices and thought processes, but I did empathize with her. I identified a lot with Aldo and his struggles for human connection and finding his purpose in life.

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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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