Intensely, Achingly Beautiful — ALONE WITH YOU IN THE ETHER by Olivie Blake

From Olivie Blake, the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six, comes an intimate and contemporary study of time, space, and the nature of love. Alone with You in the Ether explores what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you’re not broken.

CHICAGO, SOMETIME―
Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings.

For Regan, people are predictable and tedious, including and perhaps especially herself. She copes with the dreariness of existence by living impulsively, imagining a new, alternate timeline being created in the wake of every rash decision.

To Aldo, the world feels disturbingly chaotic. He gets through his days by erecting a wall of routine: a backbeat of rules and formulas that keep him going. Without them, the entire framework of his existence would collapse.

For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability―until the two meet. Could six conversations with a stranger be the variable that shakes up the entire simulation?

Published: November 2022

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My Thoughts

My favorite audiobook of the year!

Also one of my favorite books, ever.

The audio has a full cast of narrators with a brilliant execution. Normally I have to do something mindless, like vacuuming and laundry, while I listen to an audiobook, but with this one I wanted to simply be still.

The writing—word choices, rhythm, pacing, plot execution—is perfection.

The story itself is intensely, achingly beautiful.

This is a love story, but not like any sort of romance you’ve ever read. Some of the things the content addresses include:

Mental health, done in a way I’ve never seen before.Parents’ expectations and labels placed upon us, and the resulting constraints that we unconsciously allow ourselves to live within.Feeling like an outsider, like you don’t fit right with anyone or anything, and the struggle to find your place in the world.The very personal nature of love.

I want to say a million other things, but those things would be my interpretations and spoilers. This is the kind of story to go into blind, free of expectations.

Definitely read/listen to the author’s acknowledgements at the end, where Olivie Blake shares some personal information that led her to the writing of this book.

*Enormous gratitude to Macmillan Audio for providing me with a free audiobook download.*

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