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

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

I will explain the .75 under the spoilers.

This book is about grief, about letting go. And it does a brilliant job at portraying the struggle of moving on. The pain of holding onto someone who is long gone, even before the actually part. This book deals with a lot of emotional trauma and distress, and how we deal with it as it is happening. The characters are incredibly well written and descriptive of their situations. At least Miri is. Leah left us hanging for a while there. Just like her submarine.
Before I dive into (get it? because submarines) spoiler-land, one last thing: absolutely loved the Frankenstein/Monster references throughout this book. How it connects with trying to keep someone alive, or bring them back to life, as they are slipping away from you. Brilliant, again.

Onto spoilers:
  • I am bummed out about not know what The Center's purpose was with the voyage. What they were trying to do. As far as I'm concerend, Matteo was right: they sent the team down there as a sacrifice to The Eye.
  • What did the voice say? What did it tell Jelka and then Leah? Not knowing that, was also a bummer, to be honest. I feel like we would have understood the ending better (at least I would) had I known what the Eye was telling them. And if Matteo had also heard it.
    • Regardless, after so much tension and build up, that resolution feels a bit lackluster, hence the .75. 
  • I did not expect Leah to become ACTUAL water, and to be honest, that is a good thing. As much as I had loved a monster to emerge from all of this, and thus linking it all back to the Frankenstein trope; being surprised is also a pleasant feeling while reading.
  • Miri's grieve through out this book is insanely well done: the way she just ends up accepting Leah's transformation, as a rite of passage before letting go after giving up her fight, is heartbreaking. She spends the entire book trying to get her Leah back, trying to find whoever did this to her, until she finally realises, it was the water. It was the ocean. IT had always been the ocean.
All in all this was absolutely stellar. 
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