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haafsy 's review for:
Alone With You in the Ether
by Olivie Blake
“People thought addiction was a craving, but the difference was this: Cravings were wishes that could be satisfied, but compulsions were needs that must be met”
This whole time I kept thinking “what kind of person writes something like this/what kind of person could write something like this”. No human should be able to write something like this (am I being dramatic? I might be idek).
It felt so intrusive to see the inside of Regan and Aldo’s brains and i kept thinking how is the writer able to, i don’t even know the word, but how could she write characters like this, and then i read the acknowledgements where she explains her own lived experience with a mood disorder and it made sense. You’d have to, to be able to write something like this.
I usually have a favourite line or moment in a book or any form of media but this book was full of favourites. Every line/moment was worth remembering.
I started off thinking, this kind of love can’t possibly exist. It’s “too perfect”. to be known & understood so thoroughly like that. Made me think of what Jem said when describing what Julian is to Emma; “The one who understands your music”. Then i started wondering if being known like that is the most terrifying thing or the best thing or both. She could lie to everyone but not him. “Charlotte Regan, Aldo realized, loved change, unhealthily. She loved it like an obsession, like infatuation”
“was that illness or love?” Regan thought to herself and so did Aldo at times and I realized i was trying to figure that out too.
Being inside Regan’s head made me feel ill and sad. To the point that i cried. It must be so exhausting to live in her head. Honestly, it was exhausting being in Aldo’s head too. I know Regan was meant to have a mood disorder but what about Aldo? was he just a genius? All genius people are insane or all insane people are genius’. I don’t know what comes first. Is insanity a symptom of being genius?
“Aldo, I cry when it rains, I pick fights sometimes, I don’t know why. I look at the sky and feel this inexplicable sense of dread. I’m afraid that everything will end; are you ever afraid like that? You don’t need me, I need you, and it will always be like that, unequal like that”
“Can’t you see how intangibly I exist, and how perilously? Can’t you see that I—the me that I am right now, sitting here with you at this moment—am a figment of his imagination? He dreamt me into being.”
In conclusion, I think this might be my favourite book ever and i don’t think i’ll ever feel what i felt reading this (I don’t even know if I want to) or ever read anything this perfect ever again.
This whole time I kept thinking “what kind of person writes something like this/what kind of person could write something like this”. No human should be able to write something like this (am I being dramatic? I might be idek).
It felt so intrusive to see the inside of Regan and Aldo’s brains and i kept thinking how is the writer able to, i don’t even know the word, but how could she write characters like this, and then i read the acknowledgements where she explains her own lived experience with a mood disorder and it made sense. You’d have to, to be able to write something like this.
I usually have a favourite line or moment in a book or any form of media but this book was full of favourites. Every line/moment was worth remembering.
I started off thinking, this kind of love can’t possibly exist. It’s “too perfect”. to be known & understood so thoroughly like that. Made me think of what Jem said when describing what Julian is to Emma; “The one who understands your music”. Then i started wondering if being known like that is the most terrifying thing or the best thing or both. She could lie to everyone but not him. “Charlotte Regan, Aldo realized, loved change, unhealthily. She loved it like an obsession, like infatuation”
“was that illness or love?” Regan thought to herself and so did Aldo at times and I realized i was trying to figure that out too.
Being inside Regan’s head made me feel ill and sad. To the point that i cried. It must be so exhausting to live in her head. Honestly, it was exhausting being in Aldo’s head too. I know Regan was meant to have a mood disorder but what about Aldo? was he just a genius? All genius people are insane or all insane people are genius’. I don’t know what comes first. Is insanity a symptom of being genius?
“Aldo, I cry when it rains, I pick fights sometimes, I don’t know why. I look at the sky and feel this inexplicable sense of dread. I’m afraid that everything will end; are you ever afraid like that? You don’t need me, I need you, and it will always be like that, unequal like that”
“Can’t you see how intangibly I exist, and how perilously? Can’t you see that I—the me that I am right now, sitting here with you at this moment—am a figment of his imagination? He dreamt me into being.”
In conclusion, I think this might be my favourite book ever and i don’t think i’ll ever feel what i felt reading this (I don’t even know if I want to) or ever read anything this perfect ever again.