Contrary to the simple words on the cover, Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake is more than a love story. It is a tale about the painful realism of life, mental health, self-loathing and self-acceptance, growth as an individual, destruction as an individual, and everything in between. This is a story of life. 

Rinaldo Damiani and Charlotte Regan are two people who are hurt and empty and fill each other to the brim with what is left of them, love. Rinaldo, who goes by Aldo, is a struggling doctoral student and theoretical mathematician with clinical depression, and is tormented by the mysteries of time travel and believes the answers lie with the bees and their hexagonal hives. Charlotte, who goes by Regan, works at the Chicago Art Institute and suffers from bipolar disorder and is misunderstood by everyone in her life. They grow together as one and as their lives become intertwined, their hidden flaws rise to the surface and it begins to seem impossible that they can peacefully coexist in a romantic sense before their unstable mentalities catch up to them and tip the balance of the scale that they have worked hard to balance within each other. 

Unlike other romance novels, the characters in Alone With You in the Ether are the plot. They are the recurring elements that seal the novel. For Regan and Aldo, the sense of inevitability surrounds their characters. Besides their broken mentality, Regan’s artistic and conversational persona and Aldo’s theoretical and philosophical facade concoct the story to achieve one goal — love. We, the readers, see their journey towards love as they confront their mental states and define clashing charismas.

Their love is not perfect in any way. if there’s anything their love is, it’s treacherous and it’s bound to fail, but in the midst of it all, you’ll find yourself rooting for them – for these two people who are flawed in so many ways. While they acknowledge that they are both broken, they don’t try to fix each other. Their struggles are never downplayed, and maybe that’s okay because love after all is not trying to fix someone else. Love is about being there for someone through the struggles and the uncertainties and embracing their brokenness and peculiarities, just as Regan and Aldo do. 

What really spoke to me about this book, the theme behind it all, is the fact that you can meet someone on a random Tuesday, or in a hidden corner of an art museum, who irrevocably changes the trajectory of your life. Who makes you want to alter your being in order to fit them into your life. Who forces you to not only confront yourself but to confront your view of the universe. Who asks you the hard questions. Who tries to make you better. Because that’s what this book is really about, being changed, becoming better, because someone inspired you to do so. 

Olivie Blake’s writing is unlike anything I have ever read. It was exquisite, compelling, and hauntingly poetic. I’ve seen many call her writing pretentious, and while it does take some getting used to, her complex, and often abstract style, is perfect for the scattered, out-of-control feeling this book conveys. I found myself entranced by the intricate character relationships and the growth of Regan and Aldo. 

Alone With You in the Ether is an intimate, philosophical, and ethereal study of time and space and the highs and lows of falling in love and giving your all to someone even when you know you’re unstable.