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Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany)'s Reviews > Alone With You in the Ether
Alone With You in the Ether
by
by
This was both beautiful and gut-wrenching. And I completely understand why the reviews of it are so mixed.
Alone With You in the Ether is a very personal book about finding love while struggling with mental illness, and about trying to find equilibrium as a creative person who struggles to feel like themself while on medication. Blake's author's note at the end is illuminating and I think underscores what she was trying to explore. Like Blake herself, the heroine has bi-polar disorder and that plays a big part in the book.
This is understandably going to be controversial and I see several reviewers say they think this is romanticizing mental instability, though I disagree. (again, I really recommend reading the author's note) The story isn't anti-therapy (I would argue that genuinely engaging in therapy for the first time is part of the character growth at the end), but it does suggest that medication might not be the only answer. And in fact, while medication can be a life saver for a lot of people, I think this conversation about side effects is an important one to have as well. I also see a lot of criticism of a scene late in the book that is unsettling, but I would argue doing something really important for mental health representation. We get a graphic depiction of the main character experiencing violent intrusive thoughts in the wake of heartbreak BUT we also see her appropriately manage those thoughts and find better ways of coping. Yeah, intrusive thoughts can be really disturbing, but they are also manageable for most people and there's something powerful about having that represented.
Ultimately this is a story about two very broken people finding each other, falling in love, and slowly moving toward healing. This is the beginning of their story, not the end of it but I found the growth at the end to be really beautiful and encouraging. I completely understand that this book will not be for everyone- whether because the content is too intense, or because it's SUCH a character driven story, but it really struck a chord with me. Life is messy and so are people, but everyone is deserving of love. The audio narration is good, but it took me awhile to get into it because there are different narrators for the "narrator" of the story which is a little weird and unusual. But I ended up liking it. I received an audio review copy of this book via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.
Alone With You in the Ether is a very personal book about finding love while struggling with mental illness, and about trying to find equilibrium as a creative person who struggles to feel like themself while on medication. Blake's author's note at the end is illuminating and I think underscores what she was trying to explore. Like Blake herself, the heroine has bi-polar disorder and that plays a big part in the book.
This is understandably going to be controversial and I see several reviewers say they think this is romanticizing mental instability, though I disagree. (again, I really recommend reading the author's note) The story isn't anti-therapy (I would argue that genuinely engaging in therapy for the first time is part of the character growth at the end), but it does suggest that medication might not be the only answer. And in fact, while medication can be a life saver for a lot of people, I think this conversation about side effects is an important one to have as well. I also see a lot of criticism of a scene late in the book that is unsettling, but I would argue doing something really important for mental health representation. We get a graphic depiction of the main character experiencing violent intrusive thoughts in the wake of heartbreak BUT we also see her appropriately manage those thoughts and find better ways of coping. Yeah, intrusive thoughts can be really disturbing, but they are also manageable for most people and there's something powerful about having that represented.
Ultimately this is a story about two very broken people finding each other, falling in love, and slowly moving toward healing. This is the beginning of their story, not the end of it but I found the growth at the end to be really beautiful and encouraging. I completely understand that this book will not be for everyone- whether because the content is too intense, or because it's SUCH a character driven story, but it really struck a chord with me. Life is messy and so are people, but everyone is deserving of love. The audio narration is good, but it took me awhile to get into it because there are different narrators for the "narrator" of the story which is a little weird and unusual. But I ended up liking it. I received an audio review copy of this book via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.
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Reading Progress
November 15, 2022
– Shelved
November 15, 2022
– Shelved as:
to-read
December 1, 2022
–
Started Reading
December 2, 2022
–
Finished Reading
March 2, 2023
– Shelved as:
tor-tordotcom
And then they say shit like "This Own Voices book that dares to honestly depict what it really feels like to be in this position is "romanticizing mental instability"."
So... You want me to write books where we show you us as normal people who deserve to be fulfilled and happy - but not too happy, and obviously only if we perform ourselves in the way YOU think is right (even though you aren't a member of this community) because otherwise we're "romanticizing" our lives.
And like... Doesn't romanticizing mean "making something look better than it is so other people will want to participate in it" - is that reviewer saying Olivie is making bi-polar look so great others will.... give it to themselves? No. What they mean is: You made bi-polar so humanized it made me think maybe the Medical Model of Disability/Mental Health I've been fed might not be perfect and forced me to see you as a full and complete human being rather than just with pity and that scared me.
(Which is basically what Black and POC peeps have been telling us, that we're only willing to listen to the "Good BIPOCs" who "toe the party line" - which is exactly what that kind of take on this is so it shouldn't be a surprise but it's no less frustrating.)
I may just have too many feelings about this topic to be out here on the internet talking about it.