ALONE WITH YOU IN THE ETHER by Olivie Blake

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

“She was right wasn't she? that humans were inherently flawed, hindered by their insubstantial life expectancies, by mortality itself. …but if not him, then who would have all the rest? He would have to keep her, somehow, and that would mean solving her. That would mean making her his impossible problem… It was a fucking mystery and Aldo couldn't sit idly by while there were mysteries afoot… I am Atlas, he thought, holding up the heavens. I will be endurance, I will have to endure.”

TITLE—Alone with You in the Ether

AUTHOR—Olivie Blake

PUBLISHED—2022 (orig. 2020)

PUBLISHER—Tom Doherty Associates (orig. self-published)

GENRE—literary fiction

SETTING—Chicago

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Chicago, fate, the universe, moments & threads, art & museums, academia, bees, mental illness (bipolar) rep (MC), autistic-coded love interest, m/f allo romance, psychotropic medication, complicated families, lies & Truth, intimacy & personal relationships, to truly know someone, intellectual conversations, witty dialogue, falling in love, doctoral student + art museum docent romance, forgiveness, cravings vs compulsions, addiction

Premise:

Well… it’s first & foremost… a love story.

“I thought maybe we could be friends,” he said. “Or, if that sounds like too much work, then maybe we can have five more conversations.”

My thoughts:

I kept putting off writing this review because how do I talk about the latest addition to my “most important book I’ve ever read in my life” list. This is the list composed exclusively of books that have taught me something very intimate about myself, like the unlocking of one of the few doors left inside of me that I did not even know I had not opened yet.

So how to talk about a book in which I was—am—so invested in on such a visceral & emotional level? This is the most intensely passionate & romantic book I have ever read. But it transcends even the idea of what “romance” or “romanticness" even is—I would even venture so far as to say it *defines* it on some level.

“She's your... you know, your provocateur, she's your disturbance.”

The connection between the two MCs doesn’t merely transcend physical chemistry  but demonstrates how a deep intellectual & emotional connection can manifest in real & illuminating physical intimacy. & how, in such a love, the dichotomies of pain & pleasure, fear & faith, humor & anger, exhaustion & enervation, danger & safety, home & exile, are no longer opposites, no longer separate from each other, but forever entwined in a dazzling double-helix of wholeness, of rightness, beyond anything humans have ever imagined themselves to be capable, to be *worthy* of.

“Aldo, Regan said behind closed eyes, did you learn anything about me? (Haven't you been paying enough attention to run?)”

There is something so indescribably precious about being seen for who one truly is—for *all* of who one is—& not loved in *spite* of who one is but deeply & sincerely *because* of it, which, to my mind, has always been the ultimate manifestation of “true love.” This book explores in so much depth what that might look like in a way I have never seen done in literature—indeed in any kind of art—before. I may never stop rereading this book.

I would recommend this book to readers who love deeply passionate love stories with themes of mental illness, art, & complicated families. This book is best read in bed on a cool, sunny morning, the windows open to a soft breeze, the bedsheets atangle, the smell of coffee wafting up from the kitchen, & a whole day of lazy indulgence ahead of you…

Final note: In a way then, I suppose, this book is a clue to one of *my* keys.

“She was colossal like this, the enormity of what she was now steadily irrepressible, ebullient for being in his arms; Kiss me again, please, don't stop, oh god don't stop. He would never, he wouldn't, but still, please don't, we'll shrink down to human-sized when were done but for now, stay like this with me; see the magnitude of being, see existence through my eyes; don't blink or you might miss it.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

CW // drug use & addiction (overdose), mental illness (bipolar), suicidal thoughts, sexual content

Season: late Summer (for the angsty romance bits) / early Fall (for the intellectual art museum bits)

Music pairing: “Fur Elise,” by Faouzia; “Animaux Fragiles,” by Ycare, & Zaz; Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”

Further Reading—

• LOTE by Shola von Reinhold

  • Read my review for LOTE here.

• THE STOLEN HEIR and THE PRISONER’S THRONE by Holly Black

  • Read my review for THE STOLEN HEIR here.

  • Read my review for THE PRISONER’S THRONE here.

• PARASOL AGAINST THE AXE by Helen Oyeyemi

  • Read my review for PARASOL AGAINST THE AXE here.

• MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh

  • Read my review for REST AND RELAXATION here.

• NO GODS NO MONSTERS by Cadwell Turnbull (bc of the bees & multiverse discussions)

  • Read my review for NO GODS NO MONSTERS here.

  • Read my review for WE ARE THE CRISIS here. (Book 2 of the Convergence Saga)

• THE STARLESS SEA by Erin Morgenstern

  • Read my review for THE STARLESS SEA here.

• WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Brontë

• What’s Up Doc (1972)

• THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

• DEVOTION by Hannah Kent

• THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE by Audrey Niffenegger

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(I literally highlighted like half of this book so… this is just a heavily edited selection…)