Alone with You in the Ether

A Love Story

By: Olivie Blake

Narrated by: Robb Moreira, Sura Siu, Olivie Blake, Tim Campbell, Eliza Foss, John Pirhalla, Steve Wagner, Emma Paige West, Dion Alexander

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

"At the aural epicenter, Robb Moreira and Sura Siu alternate between protagonists Aldo and Regan’s perspectives. The listener is immersed into their sharply distinct, mundane, yet complex worlds..."- Booklist

Narrated primarily by Robb Moreira and Sura Siu, this program features a cast of cameos, including one from the author.

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?

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.

©2022 Olivie Blake (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Alone With You in the Ether plays with narrative structure and linear time to weave a story of two broken people crashing together like comets, and we, as audience, are witness to their glorious destruction." — Tor.com

“This is a book to savor.” — Publishers Weekly

Blown Away!

This was a masterpiece. I am blown away at how poetic and lyrical the prose is to let us see such a beautiful story. This is why Olivie Blake is one of my favorite authors. This is a quiet story, focused inwardly and exploring everything. It is about two flawed people who learn to love each other and themselves. Regan struggles with a mood disorder and Aldo is a theoretical math genius with little social skills.

The audiobook is also an entire experience you have to listen to! It felt like I was listening to a play in all the best ways. Top audiobook of the year!

We can only dream to find a love that burns so brightly, thinks so deeply, and imperfectly accepts every part of us.

This one will stay with me. I will come back to it.

Exceptional

Exceptional. As someone who has bipolar disorder, I have never felt so seen in a love story as I felt listening to this (Audible). There has never been a more honestly untruthful or calmly chaotic main character than Charlotte Regan. I felt like I was her in some moments. More often than not, actually. Our key difference is, Regan is a leaver and I'm a stayer... but thank goodness that she is. I'd go out on a limb to say that most women like us wish our whole lives for a man like Aldo... someone who doesn't try to change us so much as he encourages us to grow... someone who calls us on our BS, but is also our partner in crime and soft place to land. I feel changed by this book... not in the usual "I've assumed this characters personality because I'm mentally unwell" way, but in the "wow, maybe this is the more common experience of people like me" way. Thank you, Olivie, for your beautiful mind and your beautiful words, and for making me feel some comraderie in an, often, too lonely space. xx

I don't often re-listen to books, nor do I re-read physical copies, but I will be delving into this one at least once more so I can feel all of those feelings again.

Am I missing something? This is bad.

Listen only if you like long mundane conversations between 2 characters for 8 or so hours. Literally nothing happens in this book, just talking and talking, without saying anything truly profound.

I should have stopped at the first chapter when I reached the part that said the hot theoretical math professor (main character) also boxes and rides a motorcycle…. I have a math degree and I can guarantee you nobody in the math department looks like that or is interested in those things. (Kidding, but seriously)

DNF'ed

Had to DNF the narrator should buy a map, Minnesota is no where near the south. The story is confusing to listen to will all different voices.

I didn’t know what to expect…

I have never read, or listened to a book by Olivia Blake. I absolutely LOVED this book. Wow. Listening to it was so captivating I never wanted to stop 💛

Rare reviewer

I have listened to hundreds of audible books. This is worst one yet. I am blown away at any good review.

chewing on this audiobook

i have read this book before but the audiobook just adds to the experience of it all it’s so good

Captivating in Its Longing and Poignancy

The author and the narrators were exquisite in their abilities, and I will think about this book for many years to come, as it has touched my heart so wonderfully.

I got though 3/4

Painfully boring. I found the main female character was extremely narcissistic. What's worse is the author seemed to rely heavily on the characters mental health as some kind of fault or excuse for moral failings. Left a bad taste in my mouth. I will never finish this book.

Horrible

Horrible and shocking. I was recommended this by a book YouTuber. Shockingly horrible and tacky.