Oh, the beautiful intensity!
★★★★★ – CALSPIE 9.43
Title: Alone with You in the Ether
Author: Olivie Blake
Genre: Fiction / Contemporary / Literary
First published: 2020
Edition: hardback, published by Tor in 2022
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.
***
I picked up this book because the synopsis sounded like it would my kind of book. I finished this book and I can confirm that it is indeed my kind of book.
This novel is about people, their relationship and the way they relate to the world around them. It is not about a healthy relationship, but what is healthy? I think the book asks as many questions as it answers and I can of love that.
The thing I loved most about this novel is also the reason by it took me longer to read it than I would normally read a book of this length. It was the fact that it is really intense. The characters are super intense, the writing is intense, the experience of reading it was intense. Or at least it was for me. And yet, I absolutely loved that about it.
It was not a perfect book. It took itself a little too serious sometimes and a couple of times I was pulled out of the story, but overall, this was pretty near being so.
I recognise that this one won’t be for everyone and I think I wouldn’t broadly recommend it, but I already know which of my friends will love this.
One of my favourites of the year so far.
4.75 out of 5 stars
***
CALSPIE: 9.43
- Characters: 9.5
- Ambience: 9.5
- Language: 9
- Story: 9.5
- Pacing: 9.5
- Interest: 9.5
- Enjoyment: 9.5
Lola Et La Vie 