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A review by itshaldun
Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
This book was not what I expected! The back cover has two reviews saying the book is deeply romantic, and I would like to have what they’re smoking.
Nah, this book is more of a cosmic horror story. There are body horror elements in here that would feel at home in a Junji Ito manga. Throughout the book I kept wondering if whatever happened and is happening is natural or paranormal, and the book manages to walk that line for a long time. There are Kafkaesque elements as well with Miri trying to reach the Centre.
There are two narrators, one mostly talking about the present day and the other the disaster in the past. Going back and forth between these two felt refreshing and kept the mystery of either narration going.
Okay, now for the negatives. First of all, while reading the book, my trains from Frankfurt to Würzburg kept getting canceled, so I have to deduct 50 points from Gryffindor for that.
The second is that I find the narration of Miri a bit boring, especially compared to the narration of Leah, because nothing much happens. She usually ruminates about life, but I did not find those all that interesting. She is a flawed character, but she doesn’t have much likable traits to balance that.
Fiction is famous for not having therapy, but this time we have therapy but no doctors or ER because holy shit they should’ve just gone to a doctor 30 pages in.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I’d actually really like to see a Junji Ito manga or maybe even a movie adaptation of it. The most interesting parts for me was the eldritch and body horror. If there was an overarching theme I missed, it was probably not interesting enough for me to notice. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
Nah, this book is more of a cosmic horror story. There are body horror elements in here that would feel at home in a Junji Ito manga. Throughout the book I kept wondering if whatever happened and is happening is natural or paranormal, and the book manages to walk that line for a long time. There are Kafkaesque elements as well with Miri trying to reach the Centre.
There are two narrators, one mostly talking about the present day and the other the disaster in the past. Going back and forth between these two felt refreshing and kept the mystery of either narration going.
Okay, now for the negatives. First of all, while reading the book, my trains from Frankfurt to Würzburg kept getting canceled, so I have to deduct 50 points from Gryffindor for that.
The second is that I find the narration of Miri a bit boring, especially compared to the narration of Leah, because nothing much happens. She usually ruminates about life, but I did not find those all that interesting. She is a flawed character, but she doesn’t have much likable traits to balance that.
Fiction is famous for not having therapy, but this time we have therapy but no doctors or ER because holy shit they should’ve just gone to a doctor 30 pages in.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and I’d actually really like to see a Junji Ito manga or maybe even a movie adaptation of it. The most interesting parts for me was the eldritch and body horror. If there was an overarching theme I missed, it was probably not interesting enough for me to notice. Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.