A review by melodyseestrees
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

dark emotional mysterious slow-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

The horror elements were left primarily off page or very vaguely described. It was like HP Lovecraft without all the racism. The creature(s) were barely described and were just some Other figure in the depths. I liked the potential of the split POVS but we were constantly flipping between them so we didn't really get to feel the unwinding of those in the submarine alongside the wife on shore. 
The pace of the story is so slow that for most of it, the journey felt like "learning to love the spouse that came back wrong" but if the 'came back wrong' was a physical disability. This felt much more grief than horror and I'd been hoping for more horror than grief.
It's a grief metaphor! The whole thing is just Miri learning to let go! Leah might as well have never actually returned because then it would have been an interesting glimpse of a grief-stricken psychosis paired alongside the Husband in Space forum tangent.
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