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jaiden_grey's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
A very emotional and eye-opening read on grief, but not the kind of grief one might expect. The author had me rooting for Leah and Miri from page one. All the flashbacks Julia Armfield litters in her pages had me captivated with the beauty and love these two have for each other. The ending of this book leaves me with a pain in my chest that I can’t quite get rid of, and while the ending illustrates beautiful catharsis, I can’t help but yearn for something more.
While this book’s gorgeous prose and excellent characters truly stand out, there were a couple flaws that keep me from rating it higher. The consistently slow pace of the book was just not for me. It was sometimes a pain to get through certain sections without my eyes traveling elsewhere. It also made it hard to figure out where the book was heading towards. It didn’t feel like there was a goal until the last 25% of the book.
Leah’s descent to madness was not built well in my opinion. Her experience in the hadal zone didn’t feel like it lead to her experience with Miri in the present. Her physical and mental state felt like it came from something otherworldly, and the flashbacks in the submarine did not deliver that element.
The interesting elements that the book did deliver also didn’t feel satisfactorily tied up. The issue with the Centre and the creature Leah and Matteo witness at the end of the book weren’t given the proper time to be fleshed out, which I would’ve appreciated since those were the elements that kept me reading at the end of the book. It felt like the author squeezed those items in just to add a little flair, but didn’t close them out right.
Overall, Our Wives Under the Sea was a beautiful way to start out 2023 and an interesting dive into the functions of our sunken thoughts.
While this book’s gorgeous prose and excellent characters truly stand out, there were a couple flaws that keep me from rating it higher. The consistently slow pace of the book was just not for me. It was sometimes a pain to get through certain sections without my eyes traveling elsewhere. It also made it hard to figure out where the book was heading towards. It didn’t feel like there was a goal until the last 25% of the book.
Leah’s descent to madness was not built well in my opinion. Her experience in the hadal zone didn’t feel like it lead to her experience with Miri in the present. Her physical and mental state felt like it came from something otherworldly, and the flashbacks in the submarine did not deliver that element.
The interesting elements that the book did deliver also didn’t feel satisfactorily tied up. The issue with the Centre and the creature Leah and Matteo witness at the end of the book weren’t given the proper time to be fleshed out, which I would’ve appreciated since those were the elements that kept me reading at the end of the book. It felt like the author squeezed those items in just to add a little flair, but didn’t close them out right.
Overall, Our Wives Under the Sea was a beautiful way to start out 2023 and an interesting dive into the functions of our sunken thoughts.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma and Grief
Moderate: Death
Minor: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Death of parent, and Vomit
michaelion's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. White people can't write magical realism! An overgeneralization, I know. I don't fully mean it of course, not 100%, maybe just 90-something%, but the elements of it were there and there was still something missing.
I like the book. It's nice. It's pretty slow. The thing you think is happening is, but it isn't revealed until you're closer to 3/4ths of the way done as opposed to halfway, which also makes it feels slow. That could've been fine, except the backstory showing what their relationship used to be is kind of a drag and doesn't really add anything. Most of those stories didn't feel charming or sweet or fun. Just boring. But I guess that's the point? Falling in love with the mundanity, with the little moments here and there. Remembering things you didn't think in the moment you'd need to remember later. Either way, it didn't work for me, personally.
I also liked the nerdy bits.
I like the book. It's nice. It's pretty slow. The thing you think is happening is, but it isn't revealed until you're closer to 3/4ths of the way done as opposed to halfway, which also makes it feels slow. That could've been fine, except the backstory showing what their relationship used to be is kind of a drag and doesn't really add anything. Most of those stories didn't feel charming or sweet or fun. Just boring. But I guess that's the point? Falling in love with the mundanity, with the little moments here and there. Remembering things you didn't think in the moment you'd need to remember later. Either way, it didn't work for me, personally.
I also liked the nerdy bits.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Body horror, Confinement, and Grief
Moderate: Gaslighting, Death, Fatphobia, Death of parent, Blood, Vomit, and Abandonment
lynxpardinus's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, Death of parent, Body horror, Confinement, Grief, and Medical content
Moderate: Sexual content, Violence, Vomit, Dementia, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness
Minor: Incest, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, and Sexual harassment
kamreadsandrecs's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-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? Yes
5.0
The last time I read a horror novel that explored grief, it was John Langan’s The Fisherman’s Wife, which I enjoyed thoroughly and found appropriately spooky. So when this book cropped up in some best-of lists this year, and many of the reviews implied or out right stated this was a horror novel, I decided to give it a shot.
And yes, yes, it IS a horror novel, but not quite in the same way as Langan’s book. No: the horror here is in watching the slow deterioration of a relationship/relationships, something indefinable hanging between everyone that no one can seem to get over or around. And the thing is: it’s neither of their faults. On one hand, how do you explain a profoundly traumatic experience to someone? An experience that has changed you so fundamentally, that it might feel like you’re someone else entirely? And on the other hand, how do you try to understand what your partner is going through in the wake of a traumatizing event? How do you reach out to them, ask them to open up, without accidentally cutting them, or yourself, on the sharp edge of a memory? How do two people deal with the weight of all that? How do you keep a relationship from just…disintegrating?
In broad strokes, that’s what happens in this novel. The story is told via first-person narration with both Miri and Leah as narrators, the chapters alternating between them. On one hand, Miri’s chapters are mostly set in the present, drifting back and forth to explore her past as it relates to the present of her and the just-returned Leah. It is in Miri’s chapters that the themes of grief and grieving are most pronounced, and it is both heartwrenching and nightmarish to read about how she deals with Leah, and her notion that maybe, her wife didn’t quite come back as herself. There’s a kind of slow, inexorable awakening in these chapters that feels terrifying, because you can see how Miri realizes that something is coming, KNOWS it’s inevitable, but isn’t sure yet what she’ll do. She’s failed before, after all. Will she fail again?
As for Leah’s chapters, this is where the horror story side of the novel comes in, which I won’t get into for fear of spoilers, but they feel very cosmic horror-esque - and no, NOT because of the obvious Cthulhu references. These chapters are slow too, like the Miri chapters, but the flavor of terror here is different: a slow descent (heh) into the unknown, into madness (?), into thoughts that are maybe best left in the depths of the mind. What’s down there in the very deepest depths of the ocean? Who knows. What lies in the very deepest depths of the human mind? Who knows. Do we want to know? SHOULD we know?
Taken all together, these chapters twine and twist and twist and TWIST so the tension’s almost unbearable, until finally, towards the book’s latter fourth, they finally snap and unravel into the conclusion. That the POV makes everything feel twice as intimate and maybe a tiny bit claustrophobic - which I personally enjoyed, mostly because of how uncomfortable it was to see all this happening. I know that seems strange, but the up-close feel really made this even more compelling to read. This is helped along by the writing, which is lovely right from the get-go and makes reading this book immensely easy for all that the story feels like it should be going a lot more slowly than it actually does.
And yes, yes, it IS a horror novel, but not quite in the same way as Langan’s book. No: the horror here is in watching the slow deterioration of a relationship/relationships, something indefinable hanging between everyone that no one can seem to get over or around. And the thing is: it’s neither of their faults. On one hand, how do you explain a profoundly traumatic experience to someone? An experience that has changed you so fundamentally, that it might feel like you’re someone else entirely? And on the other hand, how do you try to understand what your partner is going through in the wake of a traumatizing event? How do you reach out to them, ask them to open up, without accidentally cutting them, or yourself, on the sharp edge of a memory? How do two people deal with the weight of all that? How do you keep a relationship from just…disintegrating?
In broad strokes, that’s what happens in this novel. The story is told via first-person narration with both Miri and Leah as narrators, the chapters alternating between them. On one hand, Miri’s chapters are mostly set in the present, drifting back and forth to explore her past as it relates to the present of her and the just-returned Leah. It is in Miri’s chapters that the themes of grief and grieving are most pronounced, and it is both heartwrenching and nightmarish to read about how she deals with Leah, and her notion that maybe, her wife didn’t quite come back as herself. There’s a kind of slow, inexorable awakening in these chapters that feels terrifying, because you can see how Miri realizes that something is coming, KNOWS it’s inevitable, but isn’t sure yet what she’ll do. She’s failed before, after all. Will she fail again?
As for Leah’s chapters, this is where the horror story side of the novel comes in, which I won’t get into for fear of spoilers, but they feel very cosmic horror-esque - and no, NOT because of the obvious Cthulhu references. These chapters are slow too, like the Miri chapters, but the flavor of terror here is different: a slow descent (heh) into the unknown, into madness (?), into thoughts that are maybe best left in the depths of the mind. What’s down there in the very deepest depths of the ocean? Who knows. What lies in the very deepest depths of the human mind? Who knows. Do we want to know? SHOULD we know?
Taken all together, these chapters twine and twist and twist and TWIST so the tension’s almost unbearable, until finally, towards the book’s latter fourth, they finally snap and unravel into the conclusion. That the POV makes everything feel twice as intimate and maybe a tiny bit claustrophobic - which I personally enjoyed, mostly because of how uncomfortable it was to see all this happening. I know that seems strange, but the up-close feel really made this even more compelling to read. This is helped along by the writing, which is lovely right from the get-go and makes reading this book immensely easy for all that the story feels like it should be going a lot more slowly than it actually does.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Vomit, and Grief
Moderate: Death of parent
avasbookmark's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Vomit, Terminal illness, and Grief
lily_peach's review against another edition
dark
emotional
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? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Medical content, Abandonment, Confinement, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Gore, Vomit, Death of parent, Blood, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Sexual content, Animal death, Fatphobia, and Eating disorder
Minor: Alcohol, Lesbophobia, Dementia, and Homophobia
rosesofthespring's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
2.5
Armfield sets up a fantastic premise. What happens to people after the horror novel ends? How does it affect them? How does it affect their lives and loved ones? This is one of the more unique ideas I've ever seen for a split-POV novel.
Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed the execution. While I was very engaged with the mystery in Leah's chapters, I quickly grew soured on Miri's. I understand the concept. Miri is going through grief, which is one of - if not the - most challenging experience(s) in a person's life. She is flashing back to previous memorable moments and previous periods of grieving. While this makes sense in theory, in practice it means that 2/3rds of the book (Miri's chapters are much longer than Leah's) is rarely concerned with the central mystery.
Before I get too critical, I want to make it clear that there are many positives to this book. Armfield is extremely good at creating tension in a small space. The thoughts and behavior of people trapped in a confined space are shown well. Often I find that writers go too far in either direction, either opting for pure boredom or immediate claustrophobic panic. Armfield walks the line in a way that feels realistic. I also love the portrayal of the Centre as an unknowable horror in its own right, a bureaucratic monstrosity that's always sitting right at the edge of everyone's mind. The writing style fits the nostalgic, surreal nature of the story. The two POVs do not feel interchangeable the way they often do when handled by a less proficient author. The two women have distinct voices and thought patterns.
The rest of this review will be far more negative.
Miri flits in and out of engaging with the issue at hand, which is understandable, but whenever given the opportunity to get out of her own head, she refuses. This comes to a head when, 75% of the way through the book, someone shows up and basically says, "Hey, would you like to learn more about the central conflict?" To which she promptly responds, "No." and leaves. After spending more than 100 pages subjected to Miri's self-pitying, judgmental, unpleasant inner monologue, that scene felt like a joke at my expense.
I personally didn't feel like either storyline reached a satisfying conclusion, but YMMV there, that's extremely subjective. I think I can see what they were going for, at least in terms of handling Miri's relationship with grief, but it didn't feel like she experienced much significant growth. This might just be because the book ends immediately after a major character moment. I was left unsure whether I was supposed to read it literally or metaphorically. This ambiguity is very likely intentional, but the fact remains that it didn't feel substantial to me.
There are two strange things, given the air of mysteries, that are never resolved in the text.1. The upstairs neighbors. I feel like this is supposed to be simple set dressing, but an enormous amount of time is dedicated to it. I started thinking they must tie into the story when Miri pointed out that she'd never seen anyone up there, and she didn't hear any signs of life aside from the TV changing channels. I don't really understand the point of setting all that up if it's not supposed to be important. I guess it was just intended to amplify the surreal nature of Miri's situation. 2. The strange phone calls. I guess these were also just intended as a weird little quirk. When it turned out that a second character had been receiving similar calls, I held out hope that there would be some kind of explanation. Alas, no. I understand that over-explanation is the death of horror, but sometimes under-explanation becomes equally frustrating.
On a non-plot note: there is one bisexual woman introduced in the course of this book. She is portrayed as an argumentative lush with no sense of personal boundaries. The very first piece of description we get is that she is, quote, "loudly bisexual," a fact which I was delighted by. Then it quickly becomes clear that this description is intended as an insult. The fact that "she likes people to know" about her bisexuality is treated like a flaw. A detriment to a person who is otherwise "all right." This character is brought up a couple more times through the book, exclusively so people can talk about how much they don't like her. I'm not saying it's unacceptable to have portrayals of marginalized characters who behave badly and are generally disliked. I'm not even saying this character's behavior is unrealistic or poorly written. My problem is that every moment of a character's portrayal is a choice the author makes. When this is the only bisexual character in a book marketed toward an LGBT audience, it feels less like an in-universe fact and more like an author's statement. If Armfield finds the presence of people like me so wholly unpleasant, I promise I will not sully the pages of any of her other works with my loudly bisexual hands.
Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed the execution. While I was very engaged with the mystery in Leah's chapters, I quickly grew soured on Miri's. I understand the concept. Miri is going through grief, which is one of - if not the - most challenging experience(s) in a person's life. She is flashing back to previous memorable moments and previous periods of grieving. While this makes sense in theory, in practice it means that 2/3rds of the book (Miri's chapters are much longer than Leah's) is rarely concerned with the central mystery.
Before I get too critical, I want to make it clear that there are many positives to this book. Armfield is extremely good at creating tension in a small space. The thoughts and behavior of people trapped in a confined space are shown well. Often I find that writers go too far in either direction, either opting for pure boredom or immediate claustrophobic panic. Armfield walks the line in a way that feels realistic. I also love the portrayal of the Centre as an unknowable horror in its own right, a bureaucratic monstrosity that's always sitting right at the edge of everyone's mind. The writing style fits the nostalgic, surreal nature of the story. The two POVs do not feel interchangeable the way they often do when handled by a less proficient author. The two women have distinct voices and thought patterns.
The rest of this review will be far more negative.
Miri flits in and out of engaging with the issue at hand, which is understandable, but whenever given the opportunity to get out of her own head, she refuses. This comes to a head when, 75% of the way through the book, someone shows up and basically says, "Hey, would you like to learn more about the central conflict?" To which she promptly responds, "No." and leaves. After spending more than 100 pages subjected to Miri's self-pitying, judgmental, unpleasant inner monologue, that scene felt like a joke at my expense.
I personally didn't feel like either storyline reached a satisfying conclusion, but YMMV there, that's extremely subjective. I think I can see what they were going for, at least in terms of handling Miri's relationship with grief, but it didn't feel like she experienced much significant growth. This might just be because the book ends immediately after a major character moment. I was left unsure whether I was supposed to read it literally or metaphorically. This ambiguity is very likely intentional, but the fact remains that it didn't feel substantial to me.
There are two strange things, given the air of mysteries, that are never resolved in the text.
On a non-plot note: there is one bisexual woman introduced in the course of this book. She is portrayed as an argumentative lush with no sense of personal boundaries. The very first piece of description we get is that she is, quote, "loudly bisexual," a fact which I was delighted by. Then it quickly becomes clear that this description is intended as an insult. The fact that "she likes people to know" about her bisexuality is treated like a flaw. A detriment to a person who is otherwise "all right." This character is brought up a couple more times through the book, exclusively so people can talk about how much they don't like her. I'm not saying it's unacceptable to have portrayals of marginalized characters who behave badly and are generally disliked. I'm not even saying this character's behavior is unrealistic or poorly written. My problem is that every moment of a character's portrayal is a choice the author makes. When this is the only bisexual character in a book marketed toward an LGBT audience, it feels less like an in-universe fact and more like an author's statement. If Armfield finds the presence of people like me so wholly unpleasant, I promise I will not sully the pages of any of her other works with my loudly bisexual hands.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Vomit, Grief, Confinement, and Death of parent
Moderate: Death, Dementia, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Cursing, Alcohol, and Biphobia
sophieissapphhic's review against another edition
dark
4.25
"To know the ocean, I have always felt, is to recognise the teeth it keeps half-hidden."
This was unsettling and I loved it. This book will be lurking in my thoughts long after I've finished.
Content Warnings Below!
Graphic: body horror (including teeth horror, eye horror, nail horror, gore), confinement, vomiting, blood, grief,
Moderate: disordered eating, psychosis, parental death (cancer), hypochondria
Minor: fatphobia
This was unsettling and I loved it. This book will be lurking in my thoughts long after I've finished.
Content Warnings Below!
Graphic: body horror (including teeth horror, eye horror, nail horror, gore), confinement, vomiting, blood, grief,
Moderate: disordered eating, psychosis, parental death (cancer), hypochondria
Minor: fatphobia
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Vomit, Grief, Blood, and Body horror
Moderate: Death of parent, Eating disorder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Fatphobia
hvokey's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
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: Confinement and Body horror
Moderate: Death, Vomit, Eating disorder, and Death of parent
sarah984's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-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? It's complicated
4.0
This book is definitely not for everyone - it's a slow, almost meditative book and it doesn't exactly tie up neatly at the end - but I really enjoyed it. Miri's wife Leah was missing for months after her submarine mission for a mysterious oceanography centre went awry (or did it??), and upon her miraculous return, she's changed in some pretty fundamental ways. The book is divided into sections where Miri is dealing with her grief and frustration in the present, and where Leah is telling the story of what happened on the mission in the past.
I do wish that Leah had gotten a POV chapter in the present, and a few of Miri's chapters had some weird biphobia for no real reason, but other than that I loved it.
I do wish that Leah had gotten a POV chapter in the present, and a few of Miri's chapters had some weird biphobia for no real reason, but other than that I loved it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, and Grief
Moderate: Death, Medical content, Terminal illness, Blood, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness
Minor: Ableism, Homophobia, Sexual content, Suicide, Biphobia, Vomit, Animal death, and Eating disorder