08/31/24: i’m more than two years out of my first reading of ALONE WITH YOU IN THE ETHER where i couldn’t even begin to explain to myself, let alone anyone else, why i enjoyed this book so much. a few months after my first read, i picked it up again, and i typed out some words about aldo and regan and their complexities and noted down what i loved. then i reread it again twice more—one was a listen as the audiobook released later that year and the other was while i was annotating copies for my friends—and i still had nothing really concrete to say. 

and on my fifth (!!!) reread, i still don’t think i can articulate it. well, not in any way that feels right, you know? let me say this: as someone who’s been writing shades of aldo and regan in my own characters, they superimposed on one another, and it was a treat for me that’s for damn sure. to see my own characters reflected in blake’s this clearly in a reread was a shock to the system.

anyway in this book, blake writes, among other themes, about the catharsis of loneliness and the ennui that stems from it. meeting each other is not only a catalyst but an avalanche. it’s not merely chemical to watch them fall in love, it is an act of nature, forceful and gripping, and yet still somehow deeply, deeply private. the contiguity of their love being both intensely dynamic and intensely private is just a treat for me to read, not to mention the varied writing style of the prose itself. ugh. yeah. i know this book isn’t for everyone, and it shouldn’t be, but it’s for me, so i will keep coming back to it. what a black hole of a book. truly a fitting way to close the end of the dying month of august with. 

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12/02/22: another reread . . . again, but this time it’s for the lads (i’m annotating copies for them)! 

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11/30/22: THIS IS A REREAD. THE AUDIOBOOK IS SO GOOD GUYS.

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05/02/22: there is smth so deeply intriguing abt regan and aldo . . . both mentally unwell and unstable, both loving each other so deeply that even they call it unhealthy, both flawed human beings who found solace in each other. olivie blake is sick in the head for this actually (she writes such banger lines tho 😫) obviously it could use a little editing, but i’m kind of in love with the genre-bending writing style

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01/21/22: don’t ask me to explain why i rated this 5 stars . I Just Did It

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*READ EDITIONS BY DATE: 

– jan 21, 2022: selfpub digital

– may 2, 2022: selfpub paperback

– november 30, 2022: tradpub audiobook

– december 2, 2022: tradpub hardcover

– august 31, 2024: selfpub paperback