Review of Atheeri by Yaroslavna Lasytsya

Carefree Atheeri takes me back to the days of my youth with one mischievous whiff, to a time of hopes and nascent dreams. When spring and summer seemed brighter and warmer, and autumn never stayed long enough to dim their glow. When every flower shimmered with honeydew and the most ordinary bloom could masquerade as an exotic, tartly sensual passionflower. Everything felt wonderful and thrilling then: every step, every breath of air. Each day was a new discovery; each evening, an enchantment. Atheeri recalls the first orchid I ever saw. She rested inside a grand box with gold imprinting and an impossibly ornate bow of satin ribbon. The box was sealed, yet I could already smell the flower in my mind. Her imagined scent spoke of green jungle after monsoon, of sugary taut petals unfurling beneath the tropical sun, of brilliantly coloured birds darting between heavy branches groaning under lush vegetation. That fragrance was both elegant and opulent. I knew I would never forget it—especially because it was a construct born solely of imagination. And so I wonder: how has Atheeri recreated it so faithfully? So precise is the emotional likeness that I see myself again, all those years ago, in a small south‑eastern Ukrainian town, frozen in awe before a voluptuous and exotic flower. Jasmine and vanilla are interwoven like that luxurious ribbon, almost baroque in their unrestrained splendour and nearly as grand as the orchid herself. Their golden‑cream hues melt into one another with exquisite fluidity and grace. The air fills with sugary, weightless sweetness, underpinned by an unusual aqueous current that lends a dewy freshness to the entire composition. It is as if spiders had spun silk from pure sunlight and honey, releasing it all at once to drift on the air. So ethereally sublime is this effect that the mere flutter of a butterfly’s wings seems enough to set it in motion. In those remembered days, the world felt built of golden sweetness and airy light. Even after sundown, impressions and sensations did not vanish; they settled into a shimmering powder that warmed the skin. Never heavy. Never disappearing without a trace. They melted in, fusing with the self in a quiet paradigm of innocence and learning, of first stirrings of fondness and, at times, hard truths. Atheeri is a child of that era I believed lost. She is a golden memory captured in precious fragrant liquid, and once released onto my skin she summons all the experiences and joys of my younger self—wide‑eyed and trusting, finding beauty everywhere and in everything, eager to live a generously given life without fear and with all the hope and courage in the world.