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nicmar 's review for:
Alone With You in the Ether
by Olivie Blake
There are different types of five star books. Sometimes a book is enjoyable, start to finish, fun, exciting, exactly what I needed at the time and therefore, perfect. And sometimes a book is something else.
There should be a designation for this. 5 stars plus. 5 stars but with an asterisk.
A few pages into this book, I knew my review would start out like this:
This book is a little pretentious. I know it, you know it, the publishers know it, Olivie Blake (probably) knows it. Whether you enjoy this or hate it will largely depend on the type of person you are and how honest you are with yourself. Are you someone who shamefully likes pretentiousness (because deep down there’s a tiny, itty, bitty part of you that thinks you’re better than other people) or are you normal?
Do you like Bojack Horseman? Do you understand Bojack in a way that is almost painful to watch? Like, do you sometimes have to stop it because it’s a little bit too much?
If so, then maybe you will enjoy this book.
There’s a part in this book where the main character changes because her mental state changes and the way that the author switched the narration’s pace and made it so manic, rushed, stressful, anxious, euphoric is upsettingly perfect. I don’t think I can write anything for the next couple of months without feeling depressed and inadequate.
In response to the bad reviews, it kind of baffles me that people expected the main character, who is struggling with their mental health and going through a manic episode, to behave “normally”. The people who review this saying “the main character is clearly unwell”, I mean, yeah. Yeah…Do you see the point? It’s the thing flying over your head.
“The thing about pills, Regan wanted to say to the doctor who had clearly never taken any, was that the ups and downs still happened; they were just different now, contained within brackets of limitation. Some inner lawlessness was still there, screeching for a higher high and clawing for a lower low, but ultimately the pills were loose restraints, a method of numbly shrinking.
Every time a pill sat in Regan’s palm she suffered some new strangulation; a faint memory of some distant need to force her heart to race. She’d crave a senseless rage, a dried-up sob, a psychotic joy, but find only pulse after pulse of nothing”
I don’t think this book encourages not taking medication, it simply points out what many people who have tried psychiatric medications already know. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes you feel even shittier on them than without them and sometimes you feel nothing at all. And how can people sit on a high horse and say that it’s dangerous to portray a character who doesn’t want to take medications when it’s clearly the author’s own experience?
I don't know how to finish this review.
I loved this book. That's it. The end.
There should be a designation for this. 5 stars plus. 5 stars but with an asterisk.
A few pages into this book, I knew my review would start out like this:
This book is a little pretentious. I know it, you know it, the publishers know it, Olivie Blake (probably) knows it. Whether you enjoy this or hate it will largely depend on the type of person you are and how honest you are with yourself. Are you someone who shamefully likes pretentiousness (because deep down there’s a tiny, itty, bitty part of you that thinks you’re better than other people) or are you normal?
Do you like Bojack Horseman? Do you understand Bojack in a way that is almost painful to watch? Like, do you sometimes have to stop it because it’s a little bit too much?
If so, then maybe you will enjoy this book.
There’s a part in this book where the main character changes because her mental state changes and the way that the author switched the narration’s pace and made it so manic, rushed, stressful, anxious, euphoric is upsettingly perfect. I don’t think I can write anything for the next couple of months without feeling depressed and inadequate.
In response to the bad reviews, it kind of baffles me that people expected the main character, who is struggling with their mental health and going through a manic episode, to behave “normally”. The people who review this saying “the main character is clearly unwell”, I mean, yeah. Yeah…Do you see the point? It’s the thing flying over your head.
“The thing about pills, Regan wanted to say to the doctor who had clearly never taken any, was that the ups and downs still happened; they were just different now, contained within brackets of limitation. Some inner lawlessness was still there, screeching for a higher high and clawing for a lower low, but ultimately the pills were loose restraints, a method of numbly shrinking.
Every time a pill sat in Regan’s palm she suffered some new strangulation; a faint memory of some distant need to force her heart to race. She’d crave a senseless rage, a dried-up sob, a psychotic joy, but find only pulse after pulse of nothing”
I don’t think this book encourages not taking medication, it simply points out what many people who have tried psychiatric medications already know. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes you feel even shittier on them than without them and sometimes you feel nothing at all. And how can people sit on a high horse and say that it’s dangerous to portray a character who doesn’t want to take medications when it’s clearly the author’s own experience?
I don't know how to finish this review.
I loved this book. That's it. The end.