Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Our Wives Under the Sea

While I loved the tenderness of the prose as juxtaposed with its strangeness, there is a point in open-ended mysteries when so much is left unanswered that there is very little payoff. While I enjoyed the premise and journey of this book, it felt too unfinished even if lingering questions were the goal.

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marioncromb's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

3.75

This is a portrait of grief, and the grief felt before the inevitable finally comes. With sea monsters.

Armfield is a master of atmosphere and gives the perfect amount of suggestion of whats happening to leave you satisfied but fittingly uncomprehending.

My only occassional problem was that i sometimes forgot during paragraphs whether i was reading Leah or Miri, the narrative voices were not as distinct as they could have been, assuming it wasnt a deliberate choice.

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forestthieves's review against another edition

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challenging 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? Yes

5.0

No review I write could justify how eloquent, haunting, and masterful Our Wives Under the Sea is.

This story follows the relationship between Miri and Leah, after Leah has returned from a submarine mission gone wrong, and begins to undergo frightening and unusual changes, both physically and emotionally.

Armfield is a master of imagery, and I hung on every single line, attempting to absorb as much of her writing as I could. The tones of nostalgia, grief, transformation, and horror envelop her words, causing you to sink deeper and deeper into the story, until everything else around you fades to black and all you have is Our Wives Under the Sea.

Longer review to come once I’ve processed this deep sea gothic queer love story.

Thank you to Netgalley as well as Flatiron Books, for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

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jesshindes's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-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? No

5.0

I swallowed this one in two days and loved it. Miri's wife Leah is a marine biologist whose work sometimes involves submarine missions; one day, she leaves for a three-week trip and doesn't return for six months. This novel is the story of Miri and Leah's relationship both before and after this experience, and it's also the unfolding mystery of what happened to Leah under the sea. Armfield's writing is beautiful - I can see why she's had such success with her short stories - and the novel is both weird and moving. Leah, Miri and their relationship are in lots of ways very normal; that is, they're specific enough to feel real but there's nothing particularly elevated or unusual about their relationship, just the sweet ordinary circumstance of love. Conversely, the undersea world that we see through Leah is almost impenetrably mysterious. The point at which the two come together is what gives the book its power. There are plenty of loose ends unresolved, but I think in horror (which is probably one of the genres this sits in - alongside sci-fi and romance) that can be a good thing and it certainly didn't leave me unsatisfied. Big recommendation from me (and a special shout-out to the 'My Husband in Space' RP community that Armfield concocts because it tickled me so much).

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