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December book club: Alone With You in the Ether (S4E6)
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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.
Our December book club discussion is on Alone with You in the Ether, a novel by Olivie Blake. We dive into the representation of bipolar disorder, both how its written and the author's note on her intentions for the story. We also have an update about the future of the podcast.
- Book club info, detailed show notes, and other links: linktree.com/novel_feelings
- Get a 10% discount through Amplify Bookstore with the code NOVELFEELINGS10: http://amplifybookstore.com/products/novel-feelings-book-club
Additional content notes: Bipolar Disorder, substance use, mandated/compulsory therapy, medication side effects
Our podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri Land, which is home to both of us in Naarm/Melbourne. Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land.
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Transcript
Introduction & Season 4 Finale
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Novel Feelings, where two psychologists take a deep dive into your favourite novels. I'm Priscilla. And I'm Elise. Today we're bringing you a review of Alone With You in the Ether by Olivia Blake.
00:00:16
Speaker
So our final episode of Season 4's Book Club. Yeah, how is it the end of 2025? don't know. Who knows, yeah.
00:00:28
Speaker
Wow. it's it's This year has flown by very quickly. but Just a recap, if you haven't been following up with the Heart Book Club. So we had Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin in January.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hospital by Sanya Rushdie in March. And then Get Alive Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert in May. And in July we had I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Deboki by Bek Sahi.
00:00:53
Speaker
And then our September episode, which was a little bit late ending up being in October, was Fresh Water by Aweki and Mezzi.
Community Engagement & Sponsorships
00:01:00
Speaker
As a reminder, of course, further discussion is in our Facebook group for all of our book club picks, including chats about our book club questions.
00:01:09
Speaker
And thank you to our book club partners, Amplify Bookstore. Amplify is a bookstore dedicated to books by authors who are Black, Indigenous, and or people of color with the aim to diversify your bookshelf. You can purchase all of our book club books in a convenient bundle or purchase them individually. They are offering 10% off to our listeners with the code NovelFeelings10. So that's NovelFeelings10. Also happy fifth birthday to Amplify. Yeah. Happy birthday. It's very exciting.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah. If you're shopping for Christmas presents as well, the book club bundle, I'm sure would make an excellent gift. I think there's only one month left where that will be available. So until the end of the calendar
Podcast Hiatus Announcement & Continuation Plans
00:01:50
Speaker
year. So yeah, remember to check it out and also check out our detailed show notes or links, disclaimers, and you can keep up to date with us on our social media at novel underscore feelings everywhere.
00:02:03
Speaker
Before we dive into the review, we thought that we would do a check-in about the future and of Noful Feelings, since this is our last episode for the year. yeah yeah yeah. And as fun as it has been, recording Book Club this year and sort of, um you know, going through our rebrand and revisiting how we structure things and everything, It is ah time for us to take a break again from the podcast.
00:02:28
Speaker
yeah If you're listening to this episode, you it's probably not your first one, but who knows. um But long-time listeners of the show will know that we both live quite busy lives. um We both work full-time and have a lot of other commitments. So as much as we love Novel Feelings, it is a bit of a passion project and we don't always – have time and capacity to be doing the bi-monthly book club. So I guess this is probably going to be our last podcast episode for a while. Never say never in terms of when it will come back, but you never know. We might pop in again here and there, I suppose. And we still have our blog. You know that when we have strong feelings about something, you about a book, we will pop up, you know, somewhere on the blog on the or on the Instagram. Please stay LinkedIn with us just in case, I don't know, we pop up from the dead. That's not the right way to put it, but you know. um But yeah, we'll we'll certainly still keep our Instagram going where we do post book reviews. I'm hoping to still do some written author Q&As there too. And yeah, if we ever just feel really passionately about a book and need to rant, that's the best place to keep up to date with our opinions.
00:03:35
Speaker
Absolutely. Shall we dive into our review component?
Introduction to Olivia Blake & 'Alone With You in the Ether'
00:03:41
Speaker
A little bit about the author. Olivia Blake is the internationally bestselling author of The Atlas Six, which you might have heard of. Alone With You In The Ether, One For My Enemy, Masters Of Death, Januaries, Gifted And Talented, and recently released Girl Dinner.
00:03:57
Speaker
Olivia Blake is her pen name as Alexine Farrell-Folmuth. Apologies if I said that wrong. She is also the author of Young Adult Rom-Com's Twelfth Night and My Mechanical Romance. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her son. What is alone with you in the ether about? Let me give you a bit of a summary.
00:04:15
Speaker
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 she is a bipolar counterfeit art artist undergoing court order psychotherapy.
00:04:37
Speaker
After their meeting, those things do not change. Everything else, however, is slightly different. I'm laughing because I feel like even the summary is indicative of the way she writes.
Book Recommendation & Initial Reactions
00:04:48
Speaker
Like all these words are like big and like multi-syllables.
00:04:55
Speaker
that's uh yeah we have some thoughts on the writing that we will yeah we will go into shortly um yeah okay so why did we choose this book uh look this came very highly recommended to me by a friend a year or two ago and initially I gave it a try via audiobook um but I at the time I couldn't get into it um I probably got about half an hour into the audiobook not sure how what equivalency that is for pages but uh the main characters hadn't even met each other at that point, but there was something about the writing and the style of it that wasn't super appealing to me and gave it up at the time. But then when we were looking for books this year and looking at Amplify's catalogue, I thought, oh, okay, well, this sounds relevant to the podcast. Why don't I give it another chance? Maybe I wasn't fair to it initially. um yeah
00:05:46
Speaker
But yeah, I guess, ah you know, some of the topics that we will be covering today um include those which were mentioned in the recap. So, ah bipolar disorder, court-ordered psychotherapy. We'll also be touching on medication um and the choice to take medication, looking a little bit as well about family relationships and touching on topics like addiction.
00:06:09
Speaker
and drug use in general. Shall we get into our review? I feel like we we're already hinting at some of the thoughts. Just in the as synopsis. Yeah, I was going to say, I was like, when when I started reading this book, i was like, this is going to be another the bronze horseman situation. Oh, God. To people who don't know our lore, I guess. It's like...
00:06:28
Speaker
Elise, um would it be accurate to say like you left the Bronze Horseman in high school? and That is correct. Yes. Yep. I read it when I was maybe 18 years old and it was like my first big epic history romance novel and I loved it and I also didn't understand problematic relationships. So we can say that much. Yes. And then you, as an adult, you were like, oh, I'd be curious what you think about this Priscilla. And I was like, oh, I always love everything Elise loves. So I'll it a go.
00:06:58
Speaker
And then I downloaded the audio book, which was what, extremely long. i don't remember now, but it was, it was a commitment. The book is over 600 pages. So the audio book's probably...
00:07:10
Speaker
At least 15 hours. Yeah, 18 hours, I think. And then it was this male narrator who was doing like high-pitched voice. still don't know why you would have a male narrator when the book is narrated by a 16-year-old girl. Yeah, primarily...
00:07:27
Speaker
Tatiana's point of view um ah Alexander Alexander but anyway when I started reading this i was like oh no this is going to be the same situation where I did not love the book if you can't tell but would by this tone but we got there we got we got through Oh, God. And, yeah, the audiobook, we we both ended up listening to the audiobook as well. And I will say off the top, um the there were a few moments where the male audiobook narrator verged on getting a little bit Alexander and Tatiana in terms of the voice he was putting on for Regan when it was her dialogue. no I don't think it was as bad as that book was. No.
00:08:12
Speaker
Just a few moments where I'm like, oh, this is the starting to sound a little bit. Hi, Pitchy. Yeah. A bit pitchy. Yeah. Let's talk about the audio book a bit further later. Cause I know there's, there are parts for this book that actually I think works better as an audio book.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. um All right. So let's, let's take a step back
Character Overview: Regan & Aldo
00:08:34
Speaker
and talk about the the main plot and the main characters. So, We're really just going to start by giving an overview of the two main characters as the book is really focused on their relationship, um you know, what happens after they meet each other and then their eventual relationship, like their eventual romantic relationship.
00:08:54
Speaker
So let's start with Regan, I suppose. so Charlotte Regan is a 20-something woman living in Chicago, working working slash volunteering a gallery. Doing something in an art gallery. can't remember.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yes. Has a desire to be an an artist, but at this point, not really one. She's a biracial woman, so she's half Chinese. And, of course, she's gorgeous.
00:09:23
Speaker
Insert eye roll here. i yeah i noticed it's written in our yeah notes. i I had a big eye roll. like I will read you a part of how she's introduced in the book. While many things made Regan hashtag blessed, The narrator disapprovingly, she's being sarcastic. um Primary among them was her hair, which was characteristically perfect, and her skin, which was generally resistant to the consequences of her lifestyle.
00:09:54
Speaker
Genetically speaking, she was built for waking up late and rushing out the door. A swipe of mascara would do the trick, and maybe rose-tinted lip stain for the high bones of her cheek, just to make her look slightly less dead. like guess come on she's so beautiful she doesn't even need makeup yeah i know yes and it's like i think there was like a paragraph that was like thanks to her mother giving her the east asian gene that means that she's always looking eternally young and then her dad's trust fund it's like she doesn't care about who likes her or not and was like i really hope that gene also makes me eternally young
00:10:33
Speaker
ah Be convenient, wouldn't it? I know. but no I'm sorry, but that's Regan. um So speaking of Regan's family, so we learn a little bit more about her family as the book progress progresses. So she has a quite difficult relationship with her mother. um who's quite critical and judgmental, what I describe as kind of subtly resentful. So she won't, you know, come out and say, um i don't like you or anything like that. But there's lots of elements to the way that they communicate that suggests that she's not approving of Regan's life choices and her career progression. They certainly don't have an easy relationship. not at all no absolutely not and Regan herself and maybe her parents as well negatively compare her to her older sister Madeline who is i don't know classic high achieving eldest daughter I suppose ah a doctor or even a surgeon and like is married with a child and just like
00:11:41
Speaker
also gorgeous uh but madeline herself actually seems fairly loving and caring towards regan yeah i'd say she seems like a genuinely quite good person um it's just that you there's this unfortunate negative comparison that happens between the two sisters and but it's not Madeline's fault that that's happening no and we also have uh Regan's father who was kind of absent on the page um yeah so Regan refers to both parents kind of hating her or at least disapproving of her but she doesn't yeah I don't think I don't recall her interacting with him all like she she goes to certainly you is in the same vicinity as him but no memorable interactions with her father
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, i can't I can't remember anything about him either. And then there's Regan's experience with bipolar disorder. So we find out through the course of the story that Regan has a court appointed psychiatrist because she was caught forging foreign currency and nearly went to jail.
00:12:48
Speaker
She got therapy instead um and was prescribed medication as well for her bipolar disorder. The author, Olivia Blake, also writes at the end of the novel about how some of Regan's experiences parallel her own lived experience. But we'll talk more about that in the spoiler section. Yeah. ah Her lived experience of bipolar disorder, and not of being a counterfeit.
00:13:13
Speaker
Artists, to the best of our knowledge anyway. Yeah, so we'll speak a bit more about Regan's, you know, the progression of her mental health throughout the book.
00:13:24
Speaker
But yeah, I think one person one important person to flag here in terms of about the context and who Regan is, is that her mental health or her mental illness, I should say perhaps, impacts on her relationship with her family and particularly her mother, um who see her as being sick.
00:13:40
Speaker
So, you know, they are kind of wary of her mental health, her choices, how, you know, if she's taking a medication, if she's going to therapy, where she's going and she's acting too impulsive, that kind of thing.
00:13:54
Speaker
You know, it's that contextual factor that impacts on why their relationship is the way it is, or at least one of the major contributing factors. And also at the beginning of the story, Regan has a boyfriend named Mark. know Can't say it's a loving relationship. I think one of our first encounters with Mark is that she, you know, Regan rolls out of bed and she was like, can I be bothered to break up with him?
00:14:21
Speaker
and then she's like, nah, you I'm already late for work. and Not today, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, we're not not really set up to like Mark from the start.
00:14:32
Speaker
And he seems quite unpleasant, like very patronizing rich guy is how I would characterize him. i think quite distrustful of Regan as well. It just yeah kind of sees the worst in her or assumes the worst.
00:14:46
Speaker
Anyway, there's a blog post from Olivia Blake's website that we'll link in the show notes where she does speak a little bit more
Critique of Character Development & Themes
00:14:53
Speaker
about her intentions behind the novel and the characters of Regan and Elder who we'll talk about in a moment. But there was a quote that stood out to me from that blog post about Regan.
00:15:03
Speaker
She is full of self-sabotage, a familiar lifetime of intrusive thoughts. She isn't me, of course, that she is made of my deficits, my heartbreak. She is made of all the lies I allowed myself to believe, but she also is made of a time in my life when I could look back on who I've been and be kinder. So,
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, it certainly sounds like there's elements of Regan's character, not just the shared diagnosis of bipolar disorder, but also the insecurities and core beliefs that really seem to shape Regan as a character. Some of these are drawn from all of these own lived experiences.
00:15:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. then there's Aldo. So Aldo aka Ronaldo Damiani, who is also biracial, so he's half Dominican and half Italian. As we said at this in the summary, Aldo is a doctoral student and a university teacher working in theoretical mathematics.
00:15:56
Speaker
So I think at least you have feelings about him. him Yeah. I mean, I can't speak about the theoretical mathematics side of things, but as someone who spent about 10 years of my adult life at university, I find it frustrating how the book kind of positions Aldo's teaching style and like his poor ratings on ratemyprofessor.com and, you know, his communication in the classroom as being a kind of character quirk or a genius trait. Like it's kind of romanticized this idea that Aldo's not a very good teacher. He's a genius, so it's actually quite charming. And I'm like...
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, but imagine being in his class and trying to learn that yeah if you're paying especially US college tuition to get that degree, that would be extremely frustrating.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, and like, how badly understaffed would you have to be to, like, keep employing someone who's clearly not doing a good job? Which university is this?
00:16:54
Speaker
Yep. But apart from that, the introduction of Aldo also made me roll my eyes. Because he's also like... a walking cliche like he's this brooding genius who smokes an unlit joint and rides a motorbike and has like thoughts about the universe you know The unlit joint thing made me laugh because it makes me think of back in, you know, 10 plus years ago when The Fault in Our Stars was all the rage on like Book Tamwa, which was, you know predecessor to BookTok, that kind of thing. Because the character Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars, like –
00:17:36
Speaker
has an unlit cigarette. um You know, they make a point of like the metaphor of the unlit cigarette. And even the people that loved that book, um and I love that book to be honest, yeah um even the people that were obsessed with it still made a bit of, you know, still poked fun at the idea of this like,
00:17:54
Speaker
pretentious kid just you know carrying around an unlit cigarette because it's a metaphor you can't hold the killing thing between your lips but you don't let it kill you or something like that i don't think that was the same author's intention but it just it threw me back to that you know the metaphor of it all i don't know i feel like if i met someone who actually did that that would be quite insufferable oh guess this was probably insufferable in person to be honest But he was also 16. you know. Which is different from Aldo. you know
00:18:26
Speaker
Anyway, it it gets better. Like like I said, we got I got through it. It's just like, I can see how you DNF'd it when you first gave it a go. Because like this beginning is not great. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, a little bit more about Aldo. So um he was raised by a single father, Maso. His mother left when he was very young.
00:18:45
Speaker
Maybe even a baby. I can't remember the exact timeline. But um yeah didn't really know his mother. um The book also touches on Aldo having some sort of previous experience with drug addiction, um stopped using after an overdose.
00:19:00
Speaker
ah We don't really get a lot of detail about this. Like we don't know what substance it was, how long it was going on for. um i think we assume that he's no longer using whatever that substance was. Yeah, it's kind of just like a background character anecdote rather than something that is really shaping his personality. Aside from maybe the fact he does have this tendency towards like compulsiveness or, know, maybe I feel like the author positions him as having a bit of an addictive personality or an obsessive personality.
00:19:30
Speaker
um I wouldn't go so far as to say that he has like obsessive compulsive personality disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder, um at least not explicitly the way it's written on the page, but he has some traits of that kind of thing.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. which gives me more artistic vibes, if anything, like, you know there's this preference for deep conversations over small talk, the obliviousness to social cues, um, the intense, like that addictive personality slash getting really intensely into something that he's interested in this preference for routine.
00:20:09
Speaker
Like of he's not distressed when that routine changes, but it sounds like he per prefers it in that way. Yeah, I think it's all like, to me, he reads autistic, but that's not spelled on the page.
00:20:22
Speaker
No. And I also don't know if that was the author's intention for him to witness an autistic character or just. Yeah, it's just something we're picking up on. Yeah, well, that was my my other thought. Is like is is he written as autistic or is that an accident or does the author think this is what geniuses are like, geniuses? Because even Aldo himself doesn't identify with being a genius.
00:20:45
Speaker
it It brings me back to the whole autistic savant kind of trait or that kind of trope, I suppose, in the media. Again, even though he's not explicitly described as autistic, he's certainly...
00:20:58
Speaker
is presented like some sort of genius or some sort of savant. So yes, he's from the same mold as Sheldon Cooper and the doctor from the good doctor, I think.
00:21:08
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Anyway, there are few of his, you know, the topics that he's passionate about that come up in conversation. So I don't think I could do it justice to try to replicate these conversations or like the topics of, um aside from the topics, which is ah things like bees and time travel and,
00:21:26
Speaker
groups of six and hexagons appear in nature all the time, but there's no perfect circles and that's there's all these kind of ongoing conversational beats that occur throughout the story. And to be honest, this was actually a part that I quite liked is some of these topics, even though they didn't always feel like supernatural, <unk>s not supernatural, like yeah mystical, but particularly natural conversation topics. But I did think some of those moments and those kind of philosophical bits were quite interesting at times. Like it got me thinking, Can I think of any perfect circles that occur in nature? And I thought of a lot of the same examples that Regan tried to come up with when she was sort of questioning the idea. And then Aldo was it saying, no, that's not actually, you know, that's a sphere, that's a semicircle kind of thing.
00:22:10
Speaker
I guess, yeah, the one thing to mention is that their relationship kind of starts after this chance meeting um and then they form this friendship that really starts based on this idea of having six conversations. But, of course, it doesn't end at six conversations.
00:22:24
Speaker
Of course. Otherwise, we don't have a book. No. Yeah. But let's, yeah, let's talk about our overall reviews before we dive into the the spoilers and the nuances of their relationship. Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I guess one thing just to flag as well is that there isn't really much plot aside from their relationship or their romance. Yeah. Oh, also, it's probably is probably good to flag at this stage that this is not romance with a capital R. Like, it's not part of that genre. It's a story about two people having a romantic relationship, but it doesn't have the happy ending.
00:23:00
Speaker
Not the traditional yeah romance romance as a genre happy ending. Yes, absolutely. So Priscilla, what did you think of the book? ah We had this discussion of Mike.
00:23:13
Speaker
I don't know how to feel about it, but going off our rubric, I gave it a two out of five stars. i Like I've been hinting or saying explicitly throughout the video. Hinting very explicitly. um If it wasn't the fact that we're recording, I would have given up about 50 pages in after all of those character introductions. i I thought the writing tried too hard to be poetic, that it tipped into being really pretentious. And I just didn't have high hopes for the characters. um
00:23:50
Speaker
But then I felt like the writing improved once Regan and Aldo actually interacted with each other. i like the dialogues best, like when they're talking and there's this banter and chemistry as well but between them. It was definitely a good banter at times. Yeah.
00:24:07
Speaker
But I hate my just the overwritten thing is like, it gets in the way of me enjoying it because towards the end, there are these like dialogues, yet they're all written in third person. I'm like, Like, what is this for?
00:24:25
Speaker
And I couldn't help, like... I don't think this is the intention at all. And I think as we talk about, Olivia Blake will say very clearly that Aldo does not fix Regan. But because the book is so focused on the impact of their relationship and Regan doesn't really have a life outside of the relationship, like in the book, I i couldn't help feeling that there's that love will fix your mental health tone to this plot.
00:24:54
Speaker
Yeah, I get that. Yeah. It is interesting when that it happens when an author will come out and say, I, you know, don't take this away from the book, but sometimes you read the book and you go, well, you might've said that, but here's the evidence otherwise. yeah I can totally understand why some people might do that. Like there is a risk.
00:25:15
Speaker
Absolutely. But yeah, we will bookmark that yeah for five minutes from this conversation. Five minutes from now. How did you rate it, Yeah, it took me a while to figure out what my rating out of five would be. i ended up settling on 2.5. Like i said at the start, I did give up on the first time I tried to read it. And I think my first impression is kind of correct. um I do, you know, you've spoken about the overwritten aspects of it and I do agree with you there. um But I do think there are some elements that are quite nice to the writing. Like there there are some sections where I think the writing is quite beautiful, quite creative.
00:25:57
Speaker
and some great character moments of course that come from that writing and the reflective tone of it that being said you know it is still veering towards pretentious someone on goodreads described the book as tumblr circa 2014 which really harks back to my the falter now stars comment from earlier yeah that's perfect but that is how it reads really yeah yeah maybe i would have loved it in 2014 i don't know um look i usually love character driven stories but i do wish there had been more plot points than just their central romance.
00:26:27
Speaker
And the trouble is if all that there is to the book is the romance plot or two people falling in love and the challenges that come from that and the characters themselves,
00:26:38
Speaker
But if I don't want them to be together at the end of the book, that's usually a sign that something's not quite right. Could I also add in there, it ultimately doesn't feel like a like a story about the relationship. It feels to me like it was Regan's story rather than Regan's and Aldo's together. Because his character...
00:26:59
Speaker
doesn't really go through like a major shift the way Regan's did. Yeah, that's true. And in a capital romance, I think both characters experience some sort of shift.
00:27:12
Speaker
Again, this book is not that, but you know, I guess I'm used to, I was expecting that Aldo will go through something as well, but everything he goes through is a about Regan.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. Anyway, continue with your review. Well, I'm nearly at the end, but I'll just say, like, I'll bring up my feelings about the representation of bipolar disorder and treatment in the next section. But, you know, I do have concerns that the plot arguably romanticizes her experiences.
00:27:45
Speaker
And yeah, I won't.
Exploration of Bipolar Disorder & Treatment Depiction
00:27:47
Speaker
touch on that too much but I think that was something that really brought down my rating yeah we'll go into why I felt that way whether or not you'll agree with me I don't know but um yeah but let's go into the the spoilers because it is hard to talk more without spoiling everything let's do it
00:28:06
Speaker
All right. Shall we start by discussing the bipolar disorder, medication and treatment side of the story? Yeah, let's dive a little bit more into Regan's lived experiences.
00:28:19
Speaker
So, yeah, I guess in terms of how Regan has been managing her bipolar disorder, so her low moods and her experiences of mania or hypermania,
00:28:30
Speaker
It's pretty much just the court mandated therapy, I believe, at least during the course of the book. So she's linked with a psychiatrist but certainly does not wish to be attending therapy. And all of this came into being because she was caught counterfeiting money.
00:28:46
Speaker
think from memory was sort of linked with a past relationship. But rather than spend jail time, she did end up ah yeah going into this type of treatment. I personally believe that Regan is someone who could have really benefited from therapy if it was her choice and yeah it was the right match of therapist and the she was ready for therapy.
00:29:10
Speaker
ah yeah She has a lot to work through. like We kind of touched on some of these self-esteem issues and insecurities, particularly as a result of her relationship with her her mother her family more broadly. But, yeah, it's just not the right context for her to be getting benefits from that.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah. In my experience, when therapy is ordered by court, by parents or like by anyone, essentially, apart from the client itself, it doesn't go anywhere. Like often the, you know, the client doesn't want to be there. So you get exactly what a Regan is doing in therapy, which is like, uh-huh.
00:29:49
Speaker
Don't know. Sure. But, you know, um I feel for the psychiatrist. Like you you have to want to participate in therapy. Otherwise you get nothing out of it. Yeah. And, and look, the psychiatrist does seem mostly interested in whether Regan's taking her medication or not. I don't really know how much...
00:30:09
Speaker
therapy there would normally be in their interaction even if Regan was more forthcoming but I guess the main question that arises from their interactions is medication helpful or not whether or not that psychiatrist is skilled and has good interpersonal skills there's only so much you can do if someone is not willing to work with you Exactly. There's actually a scene in the book where Regan tells her psychiatrist, like, you don't know me. And the psychiatrist, quite rightly, points out that that's because Regan has given her nothing. And I really, i really like that scene because there's a world where...
00:30:49
Speaker
It could have gone into this like, Aldo is the only person who can ever know the real Regan and no one else can, like, tropey thing. And it didn't. Like, it called out Regan on the fact that she didn't participate.
00:31:04
Speaker
And hopefully implies that when she chooses to, she will actually get more benefit out of it. And the whether it's the psychiatrist or a different therapist can actually get to know her like the real her and help her well maybe that's a future know future regan experience hopefully but yeah we don't really see her getting much out of the interactions within the course of this book um But a really important thing that happens plot-wise is that Regan goes off her prescribed medication, which I believe was lithium or another mood stabilizer, which was you know not something that she discussed with her doctor first. It does come up later, but it wasn't something that she'd talked about. it wasn't There wasn't any kind of tapering off or switching or trying other things to manage side effects. She kind of goes cold turkey.
00:31:57
Speaker
on her meds. So throughout the book, you know, Regan does touch on negative side effects, which were associated with her medication, including like physical side effects, but also a big one for her is feeling that her emotions are dulled. There's a quote where she says, even though she hates her feelings, she'd still rather have them than not, which I like, I get it. Like that would be really a horrible experience, particularly if the medication's not the right fit for you. um Yeah.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah. And once she comes off her medication, we see her becoming more impulsive, more creative, um but she also has poor sleep.
00:32:37
Speaker
She experiences intrusive thoughts. She seems to be experiencing what we would call hypomania for much of the final for much of the final third of the book, potentially even mania.
00:32:51
Speaker
oh Maybe at points. Yeah. Yeah. For those who don't know, um you know, mania is a mood state characterized by things like feeling very euphoric, um delusions of grandeur, racing thoughts, and very often little sleep lasts at least a week. and Hypomania is basically a more mild version of that and lasts a few days. so know irl hypomania can certainly still be problematic um can lead to poor decision making like overspending not looking after yourself but can feel really good um can feel really euphoric particularly if you have been down like experiencing the depressive symptoms of bipolar for a while um but then mania itself is considered to be more of a mental health crisis and can lead to very serious problems so
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, I guess, you know, it's no wonder that she feels better when she's off medication. She is experiencing hypomania, but at least, you know, having those feelings back, um feeling more creative again, feeling more motivated. Yeah, I can get why you would not want to go back on medication if you're feeling that way. Yeah, especially if you identify as someone who is creative and artistic, like having those sides of you adult would be quite difficult.
00:34:05
Speaker
Absolutely. She does eventually disclose to a psychiatrist that she's no longer taking her medication. and Well, the psychiatrist found out. It comes up eventually. yeah Yeah, yeah. The psychiatrist was like, I called your pharmacy and you haven't rebuilt your prescription for months. um And then Regan was like, we should have six real conversations and then you can decide if I can if i need medication. And my minor was like...
00:34:34
Speaker
It will take more than a six conversation, surely. specifically This experience of going off medication for bipolar is something that also parallels the author's lived experience. In the author's note, she talks about this quite explicitly. Mm-hmm.
00:34:50
Speaker
In the end notes, Olivia Blake speaks about how that was a positive experience for her going off medication and how she became very creative and productive. um Even though this was sort of an accident, initially a psychiatrist didn't refill her medication.
00:35:05
Speaker
She felt good afterwards. She was writing for really long stretches of time, even though little bit worried that might have been hypomania there as well. And then in her blog posts that we'll link in the show notes, Blake also speaks about medication and says, doctors think mania is worse than depression despite the lived experience being highly, highly the other way around. So while I try to get my raging sadness under control, I dashed out of dinner with his family, so husband's family, nausea, lost weight, unspeakable atrocities to my digestive system, Stopped sleeping.
00:35:36
Speaker
Oops, dosage too high. Slept for three days straight. Fuck, fuck, fuck, day stage way too high. Sat paralyzed in front of my closet, weeping real tears over false feelings while he whispered quietly into the phone. So sorry, she's not feeling well. We can't make it because the pills don't work sometimes. I did not perform all that admirably in law school.
00:35:55
Speaker
So yeah, I can get at why she would not want to continue that experience. Yeah, absolutely. And to her credit, I think Olivia Blake is quite clear in her author's note that accompanies the book that going off medication without doctor's advice and monitoring may have worked for Regan, but it's not something she's prescribing for everyone. So she actually starts her author's note by saying that she like she, so Livvy Blake, needs medication to maintain what she calls like like a normal job and regular teric therapy in order to maintain her functioning.
00:36:35
Speaker
So it's not like she's recommending yeah what Regan's gone through. But if you read the book without the author's note... like Yeah, it would have been hard to get that messaging without the author's note.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah, because I feel like the book kind of positions this as... Reek and goes off medication, feels a lot better, maybe makes some poor life decisions or maybe is more impulsive than usual and does have some impacts on her relationship. But, yeah, we're in the spoiler spoiler section now. It works out and she's fine.
00:37:08
Speaker
Like, you know, well enough at the end, like her relationship is together, she's feeling better, she stays off the medication. It's just not, you know, there's danger in a single single story, right? So without a lot of representation of bipolar disorder out there, if you're stumbling across this and this is your first time, you know, reading about this experience, you might think that this is the way to go.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah. I suppose to be fair, I don't think we ever got to the end of the sixth conversation with the psychiatrist. So i think that sort of left my my reading and my memory of the book is that we don't know if she will stay off the medication forever. But for this period of her life, it seems like going off the medication has no lasting consequence and everything works out in the end, like you said.
00:37:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yes.
Relationship Dynamics: Regan & Aldo
00:37:59
Speaker
Look, I can only really judge it based on the arc that occurs within the story. So that's why, why are there some red flags for Absolutely.
00:38:10
Speaker
Let's talk about the progression of Aldo and Regan's relationship. And I'll start with a quote by the book work Daydreamer. What is alone with you in the ether if not a collision of forces, a meeting between two people who get to connect and grow to understand each other on a deep level?
00:38:26
Speaker
That was included, I think, because of the term collision of forces, which I thought was quite an apt way to describe their relationship, which starts off as an intimate friendship, but transitions into a sexual and romantic relationship as the book progresses.
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, shockingly. ah um It feels like we are very much in the limerence stage of that relationship for the portion of this book. Like they're very infatuated with each other. And it actually, I think, verges into being unhealthy. Because Regan pretty much worships the ground that Aldo walks on. Like she keeps calling him a professor and he keeps saying, I'm a doctoral student. I feel like that highlights what's going on there.
00:39:18
Speaker
um And as she enters into what seems to be hypomania or mania, it becomes even clearer um that she is quite, yeah, infatuated by him.
00:39:34
Speaker
and she seems to think that if she's on medication, she couldn't or wouldn't love him the way that she does when she's off medication. I mean, she did fall in love with him while she was on medication.
00:39:48
Speaker
So question mark around that conclusion. Yeah. yeah Yeah. I get that, know, was spoken about her feeling that her, her something going on in her mind is dulled when she's on medication. So yeah,
00:40:02
Speaker
Maybe she feels that but if she were to go back on medication, maybe that the intensity of those feelings wouldn't quite be there. But I do feel like the infatuation side of things is not, yeah, as you said, not very healthy.
00:40:16
Speaker
um They're just head over heels for each other. And on Aldo's side of you as well, you know, he starts to see their relationship as a compulsion or an addiction sort of harking back to his experiences of substance addiction, which I touched on earlier in the novel.
00:40:32
Speaker
And just not not a good sign. Yep. red s flagg And this all comes to a head. um Well, there's a there's a few things that are going on So Regan replicates one of her father's paintings and Aldo notices this art forgery and accuses her of not having changed at all. And this all kind of happens after Mark, the ex-boyfriend, has been in his head as well about Regan and their relationship.
00:41:03
Speaker
So let's set the scene. It's someone's birthday party. It's, I think, Regan's dad's 70th birthday party. So she gets in invited. She brings Aldo. Her mom invites Mark. So if that doesn't highlight the uneasy relationship between mother and daughter, i don't know what what else would. um Imagine inviting your daughter's ex-boyfriend.
00:41:28
Speaker
to a party like that's who you wild i hate like you know god yeah you don't even she doesn't even like mark she just wanted to i don't know cause drama or something yeah um and then i think it sort of jumps around like the way it's written it like it jumps to the future and then it goes back in time but i think mark has this conversation with alder around like this is what regan does this is her pattern like She thinks, you know, she wants to be with you because you don't know her yet. But then as soon as you know her, she's bored of you and she'll move on.
00:42:03
Speaker
So in the context of that, Arda then notices that Regan has forged this painting and then accuses her of not having changed at all.
00:42:13
Speaker
Though I was a bit confused by that comment because i i was like, at what point did you actually expect her to change? I don't even know. Before Mark got in your head and talked about all these patterns, it seemed like he just accepted her just as she was and that's why she loved him.
00:42:35
Speaker
Yeah, I do. I don't know, I guess Mark's comments were quite powerful and really yeah caused a lot, you know, maybe there were some seeds of doubt and Mark was just like, you know, had a watering can going on those or something. Yeah. Well, to be fair, I suppose one of those seeds of doubt is that Aldo's dad said that Regan is too fast for you. and I think initially Aldo was like, do you mean loose sexually?
00:43:02
Speaker
But what Maso meant was like something about how Regan is like a fire and Aldo will get burned or something. And Maso had been hurt by Aldo's mother as well, who had left him quite young too. So maybe Maso has some relationship trauma to be working through as well. Yeah. Well, actually he draws like clear parallels. He was like, she's like your mother.
00:43:29
Speaker
Aldo was like, no, it's not the same. which is fair. Well, to be honest, yes if I was like head over heel in love with someone, I would probably react the same.
00:43:39
Speaker
But to the reader, it's like, oh, that's not a good sign. no Anyway, it all kind of comes together at the end with their relationship. So she has a painting that she created um called Alone With You in the Aether. That's the name of the novel.
Ending Analysis & Reader Interpretations
00:43:55
Speaker
Well, leo Leo DiCaprio pointing at the screen.
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, she was working on her own, her own creative ideas. um This painting was described as a blurred landscape composing of golden hexagons. It all comes back to the hexagons, of course. And after Aldo like sees this painting, how would we describe how Aldo reacts to to this? Reaffirms his love for her, I suppose. Yeah, it feels like the grand gesture, I suppose, even though I don't think Regan intends it that way. But that being, and you know, happy ending ensues. So, ah yeah.
00:44:34
Speaker
I just feel like it ended with a lot of loose ends. Yeah, I mean, we assume it's a happy ending because they have a conversation and I think they say, i'm coming home or something like that. So we assume they're coming home to the same place. But...
00:44:51
Speaker
it is kind of left hanging and open, pen I suppose. We don't know. It's not a happily ever after because there's not a lot of things that have been tied up. No. And maybe it is a happily for now, but like I mean, of course there's no quick fix and I don't, I think it would be disingenuous to the characters and the lived experiences represented if it were to be a quick fix ending. But yeah,
00:45:16
Speaker
buts I don't know, the characters have a lot to work on and I felt like some of the narrative arc was missing. Like it just kind of ends without, i feel like the characters really going through that much growth.
00:45:27
Speaker
And I don't know, I just not convinced that they really worked through the final conflicts. um yeah Yeah. Like you mentioned that kind of grand gesture idea and, they're still in that infatuation phase. So don't know. I just, like I mentioned in my review, I didn't really want them to be together at this point. Like it wasn't enough to convince me as a reader that these two characters are in a healthy enough place that it's worth them continuing, like that they're happily for now is going to continue.
00:45:58
Speaker
Yeah. I just, yeah, I don't think they'll make it to be honest, which seems terrible. But I think at one point, all those big realisation about Regan is like, oh, she has a problem with the truth, so she loves me because i called him her out on it early or something. was like, okay, good, but also seems problematic. you know Like, again, i might have read that wrong, but I don't know. It's that thing about, like, he's he characterises their relationship as a compulsion or an addiction.
00:46:35
Speaker
That doesn't feel like a long-term love. Yeah. Maybe they needed more boring scenes together, like pure philosophical chats. What are we having for dinner tonight and tomorrow night and the night after?
00:46:48
Speaker
Just to see them as people, I think would have been helpful, like without all the layers of like poetic writing and clever storytelling devices and all that sort of stuff. Like, I don't know. I just felt like there was something missing with this characterization that was just like hidden under all these pretty layers. And I just wasn't getting what I wanted from the story.
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. But I think if we see it as a moment in time and And I guess we'll get to the Olivia Blake's quote here where she says, he will not Aldo will not fix Regan, but he will wake her up. And because he does, she will understand something about the world that she didn't before.
00:47:31
Speaker
That to me doesn't say that they'll be in love forever. That to me says, this is like a powerful love story that you have in your life. And you might you know move on from it, a changed person, but it may not be a forever thing.
00:47:46
Speaker
And I don't know, maybe if that had been more explicit, I would have felt better. But yeah, there's an interview that the author gave with Stories in Stardust blog where she sort of talks about how she does view this as a happy ending. And, you know, she really wanted the story to, a you know, to be approaching with the idea that it's the love that defines the characters rather than their mental illnesses or her mental illness.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah. the She said, truly the point of writing was to give them a happy ending, but I'm just not convinced it's a happy ending. Yeah. but it it's ah I can accept that it's happy for now. Like they will have this relationship and it will be lovely for now, but I don't know no if it will last.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yeah.
Final Reflections & Podcast Future
00:48:38
Speaker
I will say though, a lot of people love this book and like related to so many experiences of it and found it really helpful like really hopeful too. And maybe like we can only read it with the lenses that we're coming with. Like we, you know, we can read other people's opinions and understand what they did like about it. But at the end of the day, like we are going to be, you giving our subjective opinions as two people that, you know, work in this field and,
00:49:06
Speaker
care a lot about like representation and like that sort of thing so yeah who well I guess it goes back to what you said before is the what is it the peril of the single story like I think this cannot be taken as like the ultimate representation of one's of someone's experience with bipolar everyone's experience is so different and how you manage that you know what's right for you is not right for someone else Yeah, absolutely.
00:49:37
Speaker
And hopefully most readers will go into it and understand that. So ah think that brings us to the end of the review itself. um Did you have any favourite moments that you'd like to flag?
00:49:50
Speaker
Yeah, I really like the moment with the psychiatrist, as I said said before, where her psychiatrist kind of held her to account. but Probably because I can relate.
00:50:02
Speaker
But also, as I said, I really like the dialogues between Regan and Aldo, where it felt like it just flowed and there was no trying for it to be...
00:50:13
Speaker
Pretty. Yeah. I don't have specific moments, but I felt like when i was listening to it on the audio book, was like, Oh, maybe this works better as audio. But then you and I talked about it and you were like, I think it just got better. Well, possibly both. I don't know. I've only listened to it as an audio book. So yeah yeah, I did find those opening chapters were the most difficult to get through for me.
00:50:37
Speaker
Agreed. um And honestly, the author's note was my favourite part, which is ah not not a great thing, perhaps. And I feel like you probably should be able to read this with that, reading the author's note.
00:50:54
Speaker
um Yeah, but I think if I had read it alone, my feelings about it would have been quite different. Yeah, I do wonder if they're like, if let's say the author's note didn't exist and we didn't have that context. Like, would we still have the same opinions on the book itself or were there opportunities to just tweak the writing or the storytelling a bit so that the intentions behind it were, you know, made like the message that the reader was getting without spelling out the message. Like you never want to sit the audience member down and tell them what the message is. But like, were there opportunities to weave that into the story?
00:51:34
Speaker
like whether it's self-reflection from Regan, for example, to just make it a bit more explicit that like this is what worked for Regan, that yeah she might have to review that in the future or something like that. I don't know. no Anyway, what about you? What are your favourite moments?
00:51:50
Speaker
Yeah. um So there is a section where Regan's internal monologue kind of fades in and out of being her mother's critical voice, like her mother's criticisms,
00:52:01
Speaker
um I don't know how it's written on the page, but in the audio book, it was overlaid with two different voice actors, um which I thought was very well done. Like it kind of got into that sort of, yeah, intrusive, not an intrusive thought, but like when someone else, when you take someone else's criticism to heart so much that it becomes your own critical voice.
00:52:19
Speaker
I thought that was quite a creative way of bringing that to life. It was very good. in There was also a quote that I liked that I just pulled out, which was, can you love my brain even when when it is small, when it is malevolent, when it is violent? Can you love it even when it does not love me?
00:52:37
Speaker
um So, yeah, again, like i I know I've been bashing the writing a bit, but those are two writing based moments that I did really like. So it's certainly not all bad. Sorry, I'm just flipping through the book while you're talking to find that section with her mom's voice. It doesn't signify whose voice it is, which I think makes the creative decision in the audio book a really good one.
00:53:00
Speaker
Interesting. It's just all written as if it's narration. Interesting. Yeah. They did some interesting things with the audio book. Like I know you didn't listen to all the first few chapters on audio book, but um all those sections where it's like the narrator who is, you know, someone else. Yeah. Random. was this Who is this random, like they were all done by different voice actors as well.
00:53:20
Speaker
So I thought that was quite clever. Like it was, a bit jarring to listen to because I'm like, what is happening? Who are all these voices? But again, I think it's just a kind of like interesting way to bring it to life. and To be fair, it's jarring in the book as well to me. It's like, why is like, you know, why is there a fourth wall breaking scene happening just in this chapter? Yeah. And then it doesn't come back or have any real plot relevance other than just, I don't know.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Anyway, I think that probably wraps up our episode. Absolutely. um All right. So in our detailed show notes, we will have more information about bipolar disorder, a blog post from Olivia Blake that goes more into her intentions behind the novel. And of course, our book club discussion questions, which we will also post to our Facebook group.
00:54:13
Speaker
And that wraps us up for today and wraps up season four book club. If you like us, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you tuned in for all of season four, thank you so much. Or even if you just jumped in and out, um we do really appreciate appreciate our listeners. um you We'd love to hear from you. So please do you know send us a message, DM us, email us, join the group. We'd love to hear what you think about the book.
00:54:40
Speaker
and what it's been like um being involved in the book club. And yeah, if we, you we don't know what the podcast is going to look like in the future, or if it's going to come back, but if it doesn't come back, if this hiatus ends up going on for a long time, thank you for listening. It's been an honor and a privilege to be in your ears.
00:54:58
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:55:01
Speaker
No, I don't have nothing else to add. It's just been a privilege and it's been such a pleasure chatting with you, Elise, on mic, which hopefully we will continue to do off mic. Might even do off mic. Shocking. Wow. All right. So find us online on Instagram, YouTube, novel underscore feelings or search novel feelings community on Facebook.
00:55:24
Speaker
If we've entertained you or taught you something, please consider buying us a coffee to show your thanks. All proceeds go towards making the show stronger and more sustainable links to do that. And links to all our socials are in our show notes.
00:55:37
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. And hopefully we'll still see you around. See you around. Bye.
00:55:46
Speaker
Our podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land, which is home to both of us in Naam, Melbourne. We also acknowledge the role of storytelling in First Nations communities. Always was. Always will be. Aboriginal land.