When the whole world feels tedious, what happens when someone different makes their way into your atmosphere?
Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake, who has written The Atlas Six as well as many other books. Follows Charlotte Regan, who finds the world, and the people in it, tedious. She is in a relationship because its easy and one of her favorite hobbies is to cause chaos among her family. When Rinaldo happens to make his way into her world, while she's working at the Art Institute, she finds him fascinating. A feeling he reciprocates as he finds break from his overactive mathematic when he is in her presence.
The pair agrees to meet for six conversations, to learn more about each other and solve the mysteries of the world both of them feel so lost by. These two 'lost' souls seem to instantly connect and find some comfort in each other's company. This begins a whirlwind of feelings, hexagons and bees.
This book took me a while to get into, and even after finishing it I feel both satisfied and confused. The prose is beautifully written and almost poetic at times. I found the occasionally the inner dialogue of the characters was confusing, trying to figure out what was 'real' and not real to them became cloudy at times, which by the author's note at the end of the book your realize why. Though the book says 'a love story' at the bottom, I found that it is more about obsession, than love. The characters, especially Regan, suffer with mental illness and due to their comfort with each other, seem to be able to escape that when they are together or at least feel normal. By the end of the book, they seem to realize that both being broken won't work, but want to work through some of it.
For me, this was a 3.5-4 of 5 star read, mostly for some of the deep confusion it caused me while reading. Though at other times I felt deeply connected to some of the things Regan was feeling. She wanted connection, but also didn't feel 'free' when taking her medication, something I can connect to when I first started taking anxiety meds. Honestly, I think this book would get vastly different reactions from different readers.
This is the first book I've read by Olivie Blake, though the Atlas Six is currently sitting on my shelf. I'm excited to see how the writing style works in that book as well as some books she has written under a penname that are young adult.
This is definitely a book I'm glad I picked up, since normally I don't think something with this particular story would catch my eye. I think it has a lot to teach people who are open to it.
For more information on the book, here is the link to Goodreads.
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