Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

18 reviews

pheenic's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Body horror, Medical trauma, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Death of parent

jmiles758's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Abandonment, and Suicide

jojothefool's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Beautiful prose on grief, abandonment, and PTSD. It’s definitely literary fiction in that every word is saying five words and there’s metaphors and dreams and stuff. But I enjoyed myself overall, it’s just not my favorite genre. I enjoyed Mary’s POV as Leah essentially disintegrates before her. Trying to balance grief and anger and caregiving and love, it’s heartbreaking and relatable. I think the writing was a little too dense for me to enjoy in an audio format tbh.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Grief, and Body horror

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, Chronic illness, Death of parent, and Medical trauma

The main character has hypochondria so explicit descriptions of that (although nothing causes super detailed panic), deep sea, drowning

mamatrauma's review

emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death of parent, Vomit, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Blood

torismazarine's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Self harm, Terminal illness, Body horror, Cursing, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Grief, Suicide, Confinement, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Chronic illness, and Eating disorder

kirkspockreads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Blood, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Suicide attempt, Grief, and Gore

walenchao's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.25

A beautiful cosmic horror story told not for scares, but for the scars a harrowing experience leaves. A love so true it can only be broken by something so of this world, yet completely unknown. Beautiful prose, only wish there was more to read of it if I’m being honest.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Sexual content, Mental illness, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

emma271's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical trauma, Mental illness, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

peggy_racham's review against another edition

4.25

"But what is grief if not love persevering?"
This isn't a horror story, this is a love story and a story about the sea. As such it was very beautiful and haunting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Medical trauma, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Suicide

aubigney's review

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I found Miri's POV extremely slow and boring, even for contemporary literary fiction. I also found her unlikeable and unrelatable, whether that is intentional or not (although I suspect the author didn't care that much). It seemed like the author had a lot more fun with Leah's POV, which was much more interesting, tense, and mysterious -- and also more in Armfield's wheelhouse as she likes to write about the ocean. Miri's parts seemed like a chore and that they were hastily written, as though Armfield just put them in there to fill an already sparse book. The overabundance of filler words like "I thought," "I remembered," "I felt," especially in Miri's parts, turned the book from an okay read to a chore to read. There were a few elements, especially towards the end, that could have filled the whole book but were thrown in carelessly -- like

the conspiracy theory about whether the company trapped the submarine down there on purpose

and

the beast itself

. The body horror elements were amazing but since they were written in Miri's perspective, they were delivered with such a lack of care that it was hard to engage with them, particularly in a way that would have made them more horror-ific. While I loved Leah's parts, especially for how vibrant and interesting they are, the lack of quality in Miri's parts dragged the book down for me. Down, down, into the depths below.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Body horror