Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Our Wives Under The Sea

I thought I knew what I was in for, and yet. In short, Our Wives Under the Sea is sapphic literary horror about a woman who returns from a deep sea expedition Wrong that is also a long metaphor for grief.
Somehow I still underestimated the way this book *hurt*. I finished the book and found myself wishing for a sequel - a cute romcom about Miri and Leah in the before, so that I could spend more time with them that didn’t feet like someone was actively squeezing my heart in a vice grip. I just want them to be happy 😭.
Armfield’s writing is absolutely gorgeous, and feels very much like treading water, which perfectly matches the story.
Great read, i’ll probably never revisit it out of self preservation.

Content Warnings

eliya's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

Struggling with where to put this rating ~ 2.75 - 3.5??

This book was rreeeally tedious and boring for the first 70% with some really beautiful lines and perspectives on grief peppered in that i am glad i read this book for.

Too many chunks of just regurgitating facts about the ocean with not enough reason for the facts, just that they were fun

Miri DOES say that it IS hard to make a person see how much you love someone, especially hard to make them love that person themself. I really wanted to be invested, and I shed a few tears, but I was taken out by the mundanity of it all. Too much detail placed on the wrong things. I don’t need to know exactly what was playing on the neighbor’s TV, what I really want to know is what the sound sounded like! I loved and appreciated the physical horror, but all around the horror elements just were mid and not enough.

Was really hopeful for this book, really beautiful idea, really beautiful phrases and thoughts, but it just misses the mark.

favorite quotes from the book -

“grief is selfish: we cry for ourselves without the person we have lost far more than we cry for the person” (p. 107)

“when I went to visit her, I found it increasingly difficult, not to imagine the two of us breaking down and turning to dust” (p. 117)

“ the gentle grasp and then drop of a hug that I’d initiated” (p. 118)

“I wore it as a badge of honor, nonetheless, picking up abandoned glasses with a sigh and fairing them to the dishwasher. I don’t really think it’s that hard, I used to say a lot, and she would apologize and fill the chip and sink with soap, and and really, now I think about it, what an absolute waste of life.” (p. 126)

“I’ve been thinking about you, a bit. I bite the tips of my fingers and I think about you.” (p. 176)

“… version of her I imagined before I met her, the gentle pressure when I pushed my lips in the cup of my own hand and pretended a kiss…” (p. 185)

Content Warnings

cozeebee's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Our Wives Under the Sea is one of my favourite reads of the year. I've completely fallen in love with Julia Armfield's writing style.

The story follows the perspectives of two wives in an interwoven narrative that combines Leah's time under water and Miri's perspective during her disappearance and the aftermath of Leah's return. Once Leah resurfaces, she is changed and the women must contend with their new normal. With heartfelt memories of the past sprinkled amongst the somber present, Our Wives Under the Sea depicts a love story like no other. The novel touches on the subjects such as grief, loss and love.

While I was reading this book, it felt like a limbo. Floating through liminal spaces while being enveloped by water. There was a sense of heaviness, but also light-headedness.

At first, I thought I may have cracked the code. Thought I figured out the twist, but as I continued to read I realized that wasn't the point and that it wasn't that kind of book. So I went with the flow and the more I read, the more I absorbed the emptiness of the things left unsaid. Herein lies why I love the book so much: the details kept away from the reader added to the hollow atmosphere.

In an interview, Julia Armfield had this to say about the lack of detailed description detailing Leah's condition and what truly lied deep at the bottom of the ocean:

"So I always kind of wanted to walk that line a little bit, because I think most of the time, whilst there isn’t necessarily an explanation, you do see things in the novel. I think it also has to do with the fact that I’m really interested in the intersection between realism and genre, and what I want to do most of the time is invoke extremely normal people in semi-extraordinary situations, because I’m completely fascinated, always, by the fact that people deal with things."

"things become normal so much quicker than I think we expect them to, because people don’t have space in their brain to continue being shocked. I think that it’s just not the way that people actually function."

Content Warnings