Review: Alone With You In The Ether

 I do not kid when I say that fits Malang's title track so well with this book. It's scary, like scarier than fucking Vecna [no, I haven't watched Stranger Things, but that shit looks dope scary] . Also, I finished this book within an hour and 15 minutes. I know I was planning to read it this morning but then I had to blog Last Night At Telegraph Club and that took me the entire morning because I'm lazy.

CHICAGO, SOMETIME--
Two people meet in the armory of 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, life is a finish line of mutually assured disappointment. Her method of coping with the dreariness of existence is to project herself into imagined multipotency, spinning new threads of destiny with every impulsive decision she makes. For Aldo, life is a plague of constancy--a structure of rules and formulas that keep him going, without which the entire frame of his existence would collapse.

For both of them, life is a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability, until six conversations with a stranger form the variable that glitches the entire simulation.

QUICK THOUGHTS AND REVIEW: 4/5, NOT VERY IMPRESSIVE BUT LIKE , MY DARK VANESSA ,MAKES YOU THINK A LOT.

Possible Trigger Tags:

1. Mentions of bipolar disorder

2. Mentions of self harm

3. Mentions of counterfeiting 

4. Mentions of money laundering

5. Mentions of depression

6. Mentions of substance abuse

7. Mentions of drug abuse

8. Mentions of ADHD

WHAT DID I FEEL ABOUT THE  BOOK'S: 

1. Writing Quality: The writing quality isn't definitely one of the best, I would like to say that I have definitely read better forms and styles of writing, if not more or less complicated. But this style is very different from the styles that I have read and it does keep you hooked in for a while. I first thought it would be a mixed sort of thing, like a mix between a screen-play as well as a literary novel. How many words does this book have though? It's like a novella instead of a novel.

2. Character Development: The characters are highly interesting in their own ways.

Aldo: It's clear that he has a mind that is quirky, and he reminds me of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory in a number of ways. Like they're quirky, people who are around them cannot abso-freaking-lutely tolerate them and both of them pursued a degree in theoretical sciences. But Aldo is definitely a unique character considering that he's obsessed with hexagons and bees and time travel and the system of the world. It could be that he fails to process emotions and hence he tries to cope with it using math and other graphs and curves trying to put into a system. Even though he seems to be a complete opposite. I'd definitely like to think he has ADHD because he shows some symptoms of them.

Regan: Regan is definitely an enigma. Because she's so many things at the same time that it's difficult to fit her into a single personality. Maybe that's not what enigma means but that is a discussion for another time. Lily suffers from bipolar disorder, which explains the immense change in moods from time to time as shown in the book. And one thing Regan hates very much, is constant. Unlike other people, who usually tend to hate changes, Regan hates it when things are constant. She likes it when things are in motion. Might be also attributed to the fact that Lily might feel too many emotions at the same time, which causes her to fidget, which coupled with her depression, often makes her feel like if she's not always changing, she might not be able to catch up with the world.

3.  Couldn't put it down- Ness: 8/10. As I said, it gives a lot of food for thought. Plus I finished this in record time, 1 hour and 15 mins. So that's basically like 75 minutes? Whoa that's actually fricking record time. Guinness Book of World Records, contact me.

4. Intellectual Depth: I think this book is very good for analysis and food for thought. I will put it in support of being taught in schools instead of Shakespeare, because I'm so frickin tired of defending Antonio and Bassanio's gay asses, Romeo and Juliet's idiocy, Prospero's twisted convoluted idea of a fricking revenge, the fricking love triangle Twelfth Night has and definitely Hamlet's madness. So much tired.

But yeah, this book definitely provides material for thinking. Both Regan and Aldo can be seen as two of a kind who are using different coping mechanisms for not being able to fit with the society. They're definitely outcasts for being different, because they perhaps aren't unable to perceive the surroundings in the same way. Or maybe because they are neurodivergent that the neurotypicals can't tolerate them and tend to isolate them. Hence both of them are using masks, which does not help actually, but actually tends to provide the both of them a sense of relief. When both of them interact, it's like a mask is slipping away or in this case, more likely that a layer of fake personality is peeling away. They're both broken people and they're not trying to fix one another. They're just trying to be there with their brokenness, making it feel less painful.

5. Plot: The plot isn't very interesting either. Well to be honest, aside from the romance, there isn't much plot either. At least one thing is very clear in this book is that, its a highly character driven novel, because it's these characters that keep the book going. I hadn't liked the other book, The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake, but I really like this book. It kind of does remind me of by Places No One Knows Brenna Yovannoff. The only difference was that the said book was about high school seniors, while this book was about grownass adults. And that kind of did stick with me.

OVERALL, A NICE READ, I like the way it made me think.