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maggiemcfly's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
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? No
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Body horror
Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, and Lesbophobia
tinyjude's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- 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
I find myself unable to describe this book in such a manner that it deserves. The word that comes to mind most often is "haunting" in all its senses.
It is a book about grief and slowly losing someone you deeply love, either by time, death or unnatural changes. It's also a mystery in itself, it makes you question the reliability of both narrators as they are at the precipice of a mental breakdown. The best way to explain this book is by connecting it with the genre "cosmic horrors", also known as lovecraftian horrors and I quote from the wikipedia "subgenre of horror and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible" it encompases inquieries related to existentialism. Cosmic horror is about "the forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries."
Rather than a visceral, descriptive and gorey type of horror, the author delves into this niche subgenre both in connection with the ocean and human relationships- especifically the main couple, Leah and Miri -. The writing style is gorgeous and profoundly sorrowful from the very first words. You kind of know what is going to happen but you still refuse to let your guess win, you get to know their past-selves and the shells they have become now and you weep for both their journeys.
I cannot fanthom how deeply traumatic the time underwater must have been. Sensing being watched, everyone slowly stripping away from their consciousness and memories, having erratic behaviours and witnessing the deterioration of the minds of your crewmates. The ocean in itself and its depths hold such mysteries and dangers we barely know about, so every little description or data we got from this incommensurable part of the Earth is in itself a wonder and a horror. But also the uncertainty of your partner's location, health state, anything, for six months, would certainly drive out someone mad.
In a sense, especially at the beginning, it reminded me of "The Haunting of Bly Mannor"and Dani's end, as well as Jamie's desperation, pain and longing for Dani for the rest of her life. . Which only made this book more special. I felt that I could connect with the characters' pains and fears and I was deeply immersed until the last word.
How painful must it be to find someone you knew every part of, a complete stranger. How painful must it be to watch them transform into something you barely comprehend and can't do anything about. How painful must it be to come to terms with what's best for them, even if that leaves you broken inside.
I think that simply the soft repeated words of "My Leah" in that final chapter, will haunt me for a long long time.
It is a book about grief and slowly losing someone you deeply love, either by time, death or unnatural changes. It's also a mystery in itself, it makes you question the reliability of both narrators as they are at the precipice of a mental breakdown. The best way to explain this book is by connecting it with the genre "cosmic horrors", also known as lovecraftian horrors and I quote from the wikipedia "subgenre of horror and weird fiction that emphasizes
Rather than a visceral, descriptive and gorey type of horror, the author delves into this niche subgenre both in connection with the ocean and human relationships- especifically the main couple, Leah and Miri -. The writing style is gorgeous and profoundly sorrowful from the very first words. You kind of know what is going to happen but you still refuse to let your guess win, you get to know their past-selves and the shells they have become now and you weep for both their journeys.
I cannot fanthom how deeply traumatic the time underwater must have been. Sensing being watched, everyone slowly stripping away from their consciousness and memories, having erratic behaviours and witnessing the deterioration of the minds of your crewmates. The ocean in itself and its depths hold such mysteries and dangers we barely know about, so every little description or data we got from this incommensurable part of the Earth is in itself a wonder and a horror. But also the uncertainty of your partner's location, health state, anything, for six months, would certainly drive out someone mad.
In a sense, especially at the beginning, it reminded me of "The Haunting of Bly Mannor"
How painful must it be to find someone you knew every part of, a complete stranger. How painful must it be to watch them transform into something you barely comprehend and can't do anything about. How painful must it be to come to terms with what's best for them, even if that leaves you broken inside.
I think that simply the soft repeated words of "My Leah" in that final chapter, will haunt me for a long long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Confinement
Moderate: Lesbophobia and Eating disorder
lefay_'s review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Body horror, Blood, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Death of parent and Lesbophobia
nikenacs's review against another edition
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.
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
Graphic: Confinement, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Death
Moderate: Terminal illness, Sexual content, Dementia, Medical content, Chronic illness, and Mental illness
Minor: Lesbophobia and Homophobia
znvisser's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
This was a beautiful, short story that was both very real and human, and very weird, and I loved it for both. Armfield did a great job of showing all the small pieces of a close relationship, from the gestures and memories to how togetherness evolves. I loved how you get to know Leah and Miri through their accumulation of experiences; how after meeting, they weave together into a new, shared entity (whether physically together or not) which is lost again when Leah returns, for which reason you really live through Miri’s loss. Meanwhile, Leah’s backstory strangely made me wonder whether her experience under the sea changed her that much or that it somehow helped her finally becoming what she was meant to be all along. (Also brilliant book cover)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Grief, and Suicide
Moderate: Death, Vomit, Death of parent, Lesbophobia, and Terminal illness
vicgarc's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Grief
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Lesbophobia
amabel_xo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror
Minor: Lesbophobia
maeverose's review against another edition
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 asthe 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.”
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
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
Graphic: Confinement, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Terminal illness, Body horror, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, and Dementia
Moderate: Sexual content, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Vomit, Cancer, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Lesbophobia and Fatphobia
There are depictions of people gradually losing their mind in confinement,shannenscribbles's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Lesbophobia
Minor casual lesbophobia directed at the main charactersfionamatilda's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
🐚 "i want to explain her in a way that would make you love her, but the problem with this is that loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes." 🐚
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement and Grief
Moderate: Body horror, Death, and Mental illness
Minor: Lesbophobia