A review by ashwaar
Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I’m still unsure if this novel falls into the horror genre or the this-is-unlike-anything-I’ve-ever-read genre, but it likely straddles both. Our Wives Under The Sea is a haunting, beautiful, bleak novel about Miri, whose wife has been missing for six months on a clandestine deep-sea research trip. When Leah returns, Miri is overjoyed. However, it soon becomes clear that this Leah is not the same woman she married.

The novel changes perspectives from Miri to Leah with alternating chapters. Miri is dealing with the new Leah that has returned to her, who is bleeding from the skin and submerging herself in salt water baths. Back in the past, we see Leah and her research team stuck in a submarine at fathomless depths, waiting for what they might find at the very bottom of the ocean.

The book is rich with deep-sea metaphors and descriptions, allowing the reader to question just how much we’ve really discovered when 70% of the earth's surface is water and only 5% of this has been explored. At the same time, the writing is incredibly poignant and human, allowing us the see the weight that both Miri and Leah are struggling under.

At the end of it all, this book is at both times a love letter and a horror story to the ocean. Leah and Miri can both feel detached from the reader, and their circumstances are almost alien, but the ending retains such a deep connection to them both that it left me reeling. I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who doesn’t get freaked out by submarines or the ocean, it’s such a fascinating story that will stay with you long after finishing.

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