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A review by abbier_14
Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake
dark
sad
slow-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
1.0
So I was debating whether this is a one star or two star because I feel like with my 1 star reviews by the end I’m absolutely infuriated and itching to write a long and salty review, but with this one I’m more disturbed and concerned with the message this sends, and how many people don’t see what’s wrong with this.
So this books writing style is actually awful. Kinda like philosophical prose but not good philosophy that makes you think, more like I’m 14 and this is deep philosophy. It’s boring, most pages could be refined down to a few sentences and just makes the book feel very pretentious and that it thinks it’s more special than it actually is.
There would also be parts of the book where it would be the characters own thoughts, but there isn’t a distinction to tell you that this is in the characters head but it involves other characters and more dialogue so you’re left confused at what has happened and what’s made up. This is especially in the latter part of the book so I have no clue at that ending what was real and what was in their heads.
I also hated the dialogue. So the two characters that I’ll get into have this vibe about them where they speak about things that make them feel important and better than everyone else because ordinary people don’t spend their time analysing the life of bees but they do because they are more enlightened about the important aspects of the world.
No joke but their dialogue was just unrealistic, over the top, and made it seem like they were constantly high which I’m guessing they were. I just genuinely had a hard time believing any two people in the real world would have a conversation like them which takes me out of the book.
Another thing is that the whole premise of them starting to talk is something like we can have 6 conversations and then we are never speaking again or something like that. And to me that felt like a very childish trope that you would find in a young adult book (not bashing it just didn’t fit the vibe) and reading the blurb of this book that mentions serious things such as mental illnesses I assumed this book would be more serious and mature.
Again this isn’t something normal people would do. Normal people would just ask for the other persons number or something, but this just added another level or pretentiousness and like an attempt to make the characters quirky and unlike the rest of society.
Onto the characters. Regan was so unlikeable I cannot believe people read about her and were like yep, I sympathise with her, see myself in her, and want her to succeed in life.
But to be honest with you I think one of the reasons regan is so unlikeable is that she is SO cliche.
- Failed artist but works instead in an art museum
- sleeps around but does drugs in the bathroom with her boyfriend she doesn’t really like but stays with to not feel alone
- is the outcast of her family because she’s the least favourite daughter and constantly has arguments with her mum
- her ‘falling in love’ with aldo is what makes her paint again.
Honestly all of these things I’ve read a million times before so it just makes her character feel stale and overused. She was also a horrible person just with the way she treats people around her, such as her mum and boyfriend. Tbh I didn’t even see what what wrong with those characters as I thought they were reasonable, and also the fact that they were so cliche that it was almost comic relief level. I think they are they to make you feel sorry for Regans situation but in my eyes they just make her look bad.
Regan also stops taking her medication with then leads her to have manic thoughts that put everyone around her in danger and are never really solved or seen as something bad in the book. Actually they were even justified as she says how if she was still on her medication she wouldn’t have fallen in like with Aldo.
So in other words her mental illness made her vulnerable and obsessive and Aldo was the target because he met her at the right time.
The only thing interesting about her was her crime in her past. This is not really explored from anyones point of view other than Regans, and I think she purposely holds stuff back as she knows she will look bad, and she also talks about how much she lies so God knows if forging bills is what she really did, but I would have liked to hear her families take on it maybe. she then starts to forge stuff again and I think it ends up in a museum? I have no clue I wasn’t really following at that point of the book so I maybe 100% wrong and it’s just the forgeries inspired her to paint something of her own?
As with Aldo I genuinely don’t see what was wrong with him and what made him so attached to Regan. Actually I don’t even think he liked Regan and it was a very one sided obsession.
For example Aldo only started talking very openly about liking Regan after they had sex for the first time, but then later on in the book he shrugs off her advances so I’m guessing he doesn’t feel as crazy about her as she does with him.
I just think Aldo was smart and his brain works overtime, which means he’s very content with his own thoughts and company. So idk I don’t even see how he got into this mess. Unlike Regan who is clearly not well mentally or stable.
So this was the issue I had with this book is the romance. It’s not a romance or a love story, it’s an obsession and dependency created by mental illness.
People in the other reviews talking about how this is the most romantic book they have ever read or the perfect love story I’m am worried and concerned.
This book should definitely not be the standard for what love is. In fact a good relationship is portrayed in the book and the main character explicitly says that it’s boring and a waste of potential. So I really hate that the message this book is sending that Regans and Aldo’s relationship is ok and normal.
This romance also feels as if you asked a 13 year old to write their ideal relationship but then told them to add in mental illnesses, drugs, and sex as that’s basically how bad this story is.
So this books writing style is actually awful. Kinda like philosophical prose but not good philosophy that makes you think, more like I’m 14 and this is deep philosophy. It’s boring, most pages could be refined down to a few sentences and just makes the book feel very pretentious and that it thinks it’s more special than it actually is.
There would also be parts of the book where it would be the characters own thoughts, but there isn’t a distinction to tell you that this is in the characters head but it involves other characters and more dialogue so you’re left confused at what has happened and what’s made up. This is especially in the latter part of the book so I have no clue at that ending what was real and what was in their heads.
I also hated the dialogue. So the two characters that I’ll get into have this vibe about them where they speak about things that make them feel important and better than everyone else because ordinary people don’t spend their time analysing the life of bees but they do because they are more enlightened about the important aspects of the world.
No joke but their dialogue was just unrealistic, over the top, and made it seem like they were constantly high which I’m guessing they were. I just genuinely had a hard time believing any two people in the real world would have a conversation like them which takes me out of the book.
Another thing is that the whole premise of them starting to talk is something like we can have 6 conversations and then we are never speaking again or something like that. And to me that felt like a very childish trope that you would find in a young adult book (not bashing it just didn’t fit the vibe) and reading the blurb of this book that mentions serious things such as mental illnesses I assumed this book would be more serious and mature.
Again this isn’t something normal people would do. Normal people would just ask for the other persons number or something, but this just added another level or pretentiousness and like an attempt to make the characters quirky and unlike the rest of society.
Onto the characters. Regan was so unlikeable I cannot believe people read about her and were like yep, I sympathise with her, see myself in her, and want her to succeed in life.
But to be honest with you I think one of the reasons regan is so unlikeable is that she is SO cliche.
- Failed artist but works instead in an art museum
- sleeps around but does drugs in the bathroom with her boyfriend she doesn’t really like but stays with to not feel alone
- is the outcast of her family because she’s the least favourite daughter and constantly has arguments with her mum
- her ‘falling in love’ with aldo is what makes her paint again.
Honestly all of these things I’ve read a million times before so it just makes her character feel stale and overused. She was also a horrible person just with the way she treats people around her, such as her mum and boyfriend. Tbh I didn’t even see what what wrong with those characters as I thought they were reasonable, and also the fact that they were so cliche that it was almost comic relief level. I think they are they to make you feel sorry for Regans situation but in my eyes they just make her look bad.
Regan also stops taking her medication with then leads her to have manic thoughts that put everyone around her in danger and are never really solved or seen as something bad in the book. Actually they were even justified as she says how if she was still on her medication she wouldn’t have fallen in like with Aldo.
So in other words her mental illness made her vulnerable and obsessive and Aldo was the target because he met her at the right time.
The only thing interesting about her was her crime in her past. This is not really explored from anyones point of view other than Regans, and I think she purposely holds stuff back as she knows she will look bad, and she also talks about how much she lies so God knows if forging bills is what she really did, but I would have liked to hear her families take on it maybe. she then starts to forge stuff again and I think it ends up in a museum? I have no clue I wasn’t really following at that point of the book so I maybe 100% wrong and it’s just the forgeries inspired her to paint something of her own?
As with Aldo I genuinely don’t see what was wrong with him and what made him so attached to Regan. Actually I don’t even think he liked Regan and it was a very one sided obsession.
For example Aldo only started talking very openly about liking Regan after they had sex for the first time, but then later on in the book he shrugs off her advances so I’m guessing he doesn’t feel as crazy about her as she does with him.
I just think Aldo was smart and his brain works overtime, which means he’s very content with his own thoughts and company. So idk I don’t even see how he got into this mess. Unlike Regan who is clearly not well mentally or stable.
So this was the issue I had with this book is the romance. It’s not a romance or a love story, it’s an obsession and dependency created by mental illness.
People in the other reviews talking about how this is the most romantic book they have ever read or the perfect love story I’m am worried and concerned.
This book should definitely not be the standard for what love is. In fact a good relationship is portrayed in the book and the main character explicitly says that it’s boring and a waste of potential. So I really hate that the message this book is sending that Regans and Aldo’s relationship is ok and normal.
This romance also feels as if you asked a 13 year old to write their ideal relationship but then told them to add in mental illnesses, drugs, and sex as that’s basically how bad this story is.