Reviews with content warning for Dementia - Our Wives Under The Sea

Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

47 reviews

sav_22's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I fell in love with the writing style used in this book. I would classify this as an introspective; it unfolds into two storylines, with one following flashbacks and the other following the aftermath. I think if you are looking for a thriller, this isn’t for you; while this contains a lot of body horror, disturbing and complex trauma, it very much focuses on the trauma of grieving someone that’s fundamentally changed—someone that’s still there physically, but has disappeared everywhere else. It’s a book about trauma of loss as well as the trauma of loving.

as much as I would have loved to know the actual cause of Leah’s condition and what happened down there in the dark depths of the sea, I think this book is meant to live through the metaphor of what’s happening. I interpreted Leah’s condition as symbolism for a greater complex trauma that’s destroyed her spirit and in turn is destroying her physically. It reminds me of how people shut down after a traumatic event, with the ptsd of it further sinking them into oblivion. Viewing it this way made the story all the more gut wrenching, as Miri has to both process the grief of losing Leah twice: once to her incident, and the next to her trauma. Overall, I found the incompleteness of this conclusion to be purposeful and reflective on the reoccurring theme of “unstillness”; Life goes on, and so will you, even if you aren’t able to understand everything. <spoiler/>

Content Warnings

kalldaff's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

nikenacs's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Strong portrayal of love, loss, and watching yourself grieve a love, even while it's still around. Listened to it on two rainy train rides over the North Sea, which was the perfect gloomy atmosphere. Good portrayal of depression, directly fed into my own depression tbh. All their relationship memories coming back made me think of all my loved ones and the little details I love about them, as well, I really enjoyed that. Especially when those memories start showing up in Leah's parts as well!

However, especially Miri's parts were a bit too slow-paced for my personal taste, and Miri as a protagonist increasingly irritated me with how much she was a dick to everyone around her. I know this is intentional, and I think I'd have more compassion with a real person, but as a protagonist, she was a lot at times.

Content Warnings

gwasgy's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Very cool book!!!! My friend read it to me :)

The anecdotes about their relationship and sex life and weddings they went to and their relationship to their parents and the horrible reality of Leah turning into uh that. Contrasting with it was very good I enjoyed it. It reflected an interesting and I think extra real seeming reality

Content Warnings

maeverose's review against another edition

Go to review page

mysterious sad

Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

I’m unsure how I feel about this yet.

TL;DR: As other people have said, this isn’t so much horror as a book about grief with horror sprinkled throughout. I was interested to see what would happen the whole way through and I do tend to like books about grief, but in the end am left feeling overall ‘meh’ about the book.

A note on the horror elements for those worried about it:
If you’re especially bothered by body horror, gore, or themes of going insane I would go in prepared for that if you plan on reading it. I’m not a horror reader and I dislike reading those themes, but most of this book was fine for me (check my content warnings section for which parts to skip if you also dislike these themes but want to read anyway. You can’t really skip the ‘going insane’ stuff unless you just don’t read any of Leah’s chapters, but you’d be missing out on some parts of the story then). That being said, you know what your own limits are best. I have a moderate tolerance for gore in books and I’m rarely bothered by non-gory body horror. If you have a low tolerance overall, I’d probably skip it.

Now on to my thoughts:
(Vague/minor plot spoilers, but not really since this is not a plot-focused book)

I liked the way the Centre was depicted as this mysterious corporate entity, and wish that was explored more, as well as

the whole sea creature thing

. I get that the horror and mystery elements aren’t the focus, the focus is on Miri’s grief, with the horror elements being a metaphorical parallel to losing a loved one to illness. But it’s left somewhat unclear whether or not it’s also actually happening. If it is actually happening, then that leaves me a bit frustrated with how Miri acted. She seemed so uninterested in finding answers or taking any sort of legal action against the Centre. At no point does the idea even come up to do that, and that seems so ridiculous to me given everything they kept quiet about and the entire way they acted and operated. If I were Miri I’d be pissed at them. I’d be demanding answers. She pretty much gave up after they stopped responding to her calls. I didn’t understand why she never took Leah to a doctor, especially given how much she obviously cares about her, why wasn’t she doing everything she could to help her?

When Juna met up with Miri and tried to explain what she found out and Miri cut her off and left, I was so annoyed. She seemed so uninterested in what Juna had to say and I would be the exact opposite. She didn’t seem at all shocked to learn that someone died on the same trip her wife was on…

In general Miri seemed much more focused on her own grief rather than being concerned for her wife who clearly went through an extremely traumatic experience. Again, if none of it is really real then it makes sense but with it being somewhat left up to interpretation, it was frustrating.

On that note, I’ll end with some quotes about grieving missing loved ones that I liked:

“-grieving was complicated by lack of certainty, that the hope inherent in a missing loved one was also a species of curse.”

“In almost every case, the sense of loss was convoluted by an ache of possibility, by the almost-but-not-quite-negligible hope of reprieve.”

“Grief is selfish: we cry for ourselves without the person we have lost far more than we cry for the person - but more than that, we cry because it helps. The grief process is also the coping process and if the grief is frozen by ambiguity, by the constant possibility of reversal, then so is the ability to cope.”

Content Warnings

julesadventurezone's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A story about being a hypochondriac living in a rented flat with thin walls who finds it so hard to keep up with friends, whose wife says she'll be gone for three weeks and instead stays gone for six months. And then when she comes back she comes back so wrong. How do you live with that grief? What can you even hope to do about this?
It's a love story, it's a ghost story, it's a horror story.

Content Warnings

theirgracegrace's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I read this book in a whirlwind three weeks and I cannot get it out of my head. The pastiche of character moments (especially at the end) can come across as jarring but helps to solidify the main characters Miri and Leah. Their relationship deteriorates when Leah comes back "wrong" after a routine research trip in a submarine leaves her stranded on the ocean floor for six months. The point-of-view bounces between Miri trying to make sense of her wife's strange behaviour and Leah explaining how the trip might have purposefully done for some mysterious ends. A tragic ending puts this book high on my list of recommended books. A fantastic read!

Content Warnings