Our Wives Under the Sea
Ratings277
Average rating3.8
Felt like a poor man's Annihilation in scifi-ish/thriller tone, except with less developed and forgettable characters. Reports of body horror were grossly over exaggerated.
Not a horror book. I DNF'd at 26% when I felt like the book was going nowhere. I googled to see if my suspicions were right, they were. This is 95% about a failing marriage after a tragic event and 5% “horror”. I felt Miri was unlikable and Leah was unreliable as a narrator. The parts of the book I was most interested in were the submarine and it's sinking, those chapters were 4 pages long while Miri's parts were 20 pages long or more. If you aren't looking for a horror or thriller this book is for you, if you are looking for that, then avoid it.
‘'The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness. Unstill, is the word Leah uses, tilting her head to the side as if in answer to some sound though the evening is quiet - dry hum of the road outside the window and little to draw the ear besides.''
Miri's world falls apart when her wife, Leah, seems to have been lost in a deep-sea mission that went awry. When the impossible happens and Leah returns, their life changes in a way that no one could have foreseen. Leah has become water. She is slowly turning into a nymph of the sea, an otherwordly creature whose condition cannot be clarified. The only thing that can sustain the facade of normality is love. But is love enough to save a life?
Following her superb collection Salt Slow, Julia Armfield's debut novel is an ethereal, haunting, mystical masterpiece.
‘'I want to explain her in a way that would make you love her, but the problem with this is that loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes.''
Julia Armfield composes a shuttering elegy of love and grief, the sacrifices we are bound to make when we decide to share our life with the one we love, the compromises of the past, the hopes and fears that control the future. In a modern fable, in a contemporary folk tale of the sea and its mysteries, Leah and Miri struggle against the unpredictable current of Life. When the one you thought lost forever returns, when you see that they have become a shadow of themselves, when you find yourself ready to surrender to the inevitable, memories can give you strength. When you know that you would eventually give up everything to experience those magical moments of falling in love with someone all over again, then you have only one choice. To love. There is no alternative.
‘'I love going into the cinema when it's still light and then coming out in the dark. Makes me think about the way a city is never the same. I mean, the way everything changes. Every night, every minute, it's over and things will never be the same again.''
Is there stability and certainty? Our lives can change within seconds. The dry land is as fluid as the sea, our daily course may seem mundane but are we keen on surprises? Are we fond of dreams in which nightmares have made their lairs? Julie Armfield poetically describes the fight of both women as Miri tries to stay afloat and Leah struggles to make sense of a world that is no longer known to her. Their thoughts and unique voices are portrayed to perfection, flawlessly communicated, so real, so familiar, so tangible.
‘'My heart is a thin thing, these days - shred of paper blown between the spaces in my ribs.''
We will find references to Kon-Tiki and the Blood Eagle of the Nordic civilization. Mysticism and religious folklore with a particular focus on St Brendan, one of my favourite Irish saints, the seafarer who battled against monsters and demons. The myths of the tides, the voyages in the seven seas, the unbreakable and devious bond between the human and the ocean with its treasures and its dangers.
[‘'...and then one night he comes upon a man chained to a pillar of rock, in the middle of the sea - just there, just there in the ocean like this great, tall fang rising from the waves, this thing that shouldn't be there, a man at the mercy of the elements. So St Brendan calls out to him and he learns that the man is Judas - Judas who gave Jesus up for dead - Judas, the failed apostle - and St Brendan learns that Judas is there because the way in which the Lord chooses to show him mercy is to free him from his torments, to free him from hell on Sundays and Holy Days, and cast him adrift on the ocean, where he can at least feel the wind on his face.''
And carried by the waves and the wind are our regrets, our sorrow, our love and the things that were foolishly left unspoken...
This novel is destined to be one of the masterpieces of 2022.
‘'Ghosts don't speak'', she said to me. ‘'People misunderstand this. They think that when you're haunted you hear someone speaking but you don't. Or not usually. Most of the time, if you hear something speaking, it's not a ghost - it's something worse.''
Many thanks to Picador and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/
beautifully written and beautifully tragic. i thought the characters were so real and relatable. looking forward to reading more from this author!
Kind of like Peter Watts's Starfish, but after they get back home, if it was less about what actually happened and more about the state of their relationship. Which is to say, I guess, not very similar. It was a bit more “lit” than I prefer, with a focus on somewhat dysfunctional relationships.
The premise going in was excitingly eerie but it didn't develop much past that.
That said, the writing itself was not bad, and I found myself enjoying and noting down several lines that were particularly clever, cool or funny. I also suspect some of the greater themes went over my head.
Anyway, if you want creepy deep sea people but hard sci-fi, try Starfish.
Our Wives Under The Sea is beautiful and emotionally affecting story that swept me up.
In short story is about Two wives Miri and her partner Leah, who has returned after being missing for months, stuck below the surface during a submarine accident. But after her return, things were not quite same,now That Leah has returned she's changed in ways that Miri finds it difficult to understand.
What I really liked about this book was how it shows the raw and real emotions of love,loss and the difficult journey of reconnecting with someone who has gone through something you can't fully grasp. It made me feel for both characters deeply as they tried to rebuild their lives together,even though they were suffering through a lot of hurt and confusion. The author has written it really well showed a sense of loneliness and isolation, but hope,as characters search for ways to deal with the new reality they find themselves in.
The story was strange a bit in the beginning but changed later on.
Ending was not predictable and I really liked reading this book.
As a hypochondriac, the typical response when I'm panicking is to acknowledge it will end. At some point, I will cease to be convinced that I have a brain tumor, or a stomach ulcer, or some degenerative condition of the nerves, and so at some point, the bad thing will end. When something bad is actually happening, it's easy to underreact, because a part of you is wired to assume it isn't real. When you stop underreacting, the horror is unique because it is, unfortunately, endless.
I'm glad I went into this knowing to expect a slow literary novel. I think classifying this as a horror novel alone does it a disservice — there are horrifying aspects but to me they are secondary to the internal lives of these characters and their relationships. Readers going in with the wrong expectations may not be happy about what they find.
I find it ironic that I purchased this while waiting for visiting hours to start at the hospital where my dad had been admitted after having a stroke. I was deep in my anticipatory grief; he had already been diagnosed with advanced bladder cancer. Once at the hospital, I only made it 7 pages before he threw a tantrum because he wanted his vape. I couldn't really blame him. Then I didn't pick this up again for almost two years.
Since my dad's passing — especially during the first year — grief horror has been instrumental to my healing. At the time I bought this, I didn't realize how relevant it would feel. Armfield did a fantastic job conveying the overwhelming numbness and even the frustration one feels during these periods of anticipatory grief. The mundane world feels like it no longer matters. Who cares about emails when you're losing someone so important? Why won't my loved one listen to me when I know how to help them? Miri pushes for help and answers, while Leah knows something inevitable is coming.
With a slow start, Our Wives Under the Sea is propelled by a slowly mounting feeling of dread. I entered the novel confused, frustrated at the lack of clarity. As things built, I understood the feelings Armfield was trying to convey. Although an entirely different situation than my own, I felt deeply connected to Miri's emotional journey. This is more personal essay than book review, but I hope I've gotten across how much this book meant to me. While I see why this wouldn't work for some, I think Julia Armfield is an incredibly talented writer and I look forward to picking up more of her work.
Uf. Tremendo libro! Es la historia de un matrimonio contada en dos tiempos, el pasado de Leah en su expedición en el océano profundo y el presente de Miri, que lidia con todo lo que sucedió cuando volvió. Es una historia de terror, pero con un terror tan sutil que casi no lo ves venir. La trama en sí es lenta, como q no va pasando nada, pero está escrito de una forma tan atrapante que no te das cuenta. Una maravilla de la narrativa.
I really get the sense that the author would write great short stories.
Also. The review on the cover reads “Deeply romantic and fabulously strange” and I would only add, creepy in a good way — I also wouldn't have thought it romantic, but do completely agree with the statement.
This is a great book if you're looking for atmosphere and slow build. It's a very weird kind of horror. While the book is horrifying, it's in a very sad, hopeless way. I loved experiencing it.
However, this is one of those books that is vague with details, drags on some parts of the story while it rushes the others. You will have some unanswered questions, but I think it is intentionally so to keep this atmosphere.
Beautiful writing, and short digestable chapters. I came for deep sea horror but stayed for the dreadful disquiet.
“I think that the thing about losing someone isn't the loss but the absence afterwards. The endlessness of that”
3,5 ☆
I was briefly thinking about giving this four stars because the last few pages genuinely brought tears to my eyes with their sadness and beauty.
This whole book is beautiful, really. The way it is written, it feels almost like a 230-page poem.
Though I have to say, this book isn't what I expected. It is very ambiguous in its plot, in what is going on, in what happened to Leah both at the bottom of the sea and once she resurfaced.
By the end you have even more questions than at the beginning.
And at first I wasn't sure if I liked that, but the more it's sitting with me, the more I appreciate this story for what it is.
It is, at the same time, horror and a queer love story.
I got insanely invested in Miri and Leah together, from Miri's reminiscing on their first dates, the early stages of their relationship, how she managed to find joy in intimacy through a patient, loving partner (honestly, felt). I wanted nothing more than for them to be happy. Which made the horror of this book all the more heartbreaking.
There's body horror of course, but the main focus I think is on the horror of the Unknown, on the things the mind cannot or refuses to comprehend, and even more so the horror of loss and grief. Not only originating from someone's death, but also from losing someone in a different way. The horror of someone you love irreparably changing, being different from what they used to be, not just physically but as a person, yearning for the old them because now you don't recognize them anymore, and the incredible loneliness that derives from that. The horror of having to work through all that to finally find peace and let them go, to be able to continue on with your life.
I feel like this book is going to stay with me for a while, that I will keep thinking back to it and the things it's trying to say.
This was an interesting book, but I feel like it was missing something... maybe a climatic part. I don't know, it was really well written but the story itself was pretty slow and boring. The plot was interesting but I feel there wasn't enough horror to make it horror, if that makes sense.
way too vague to get the author's points across. the idea was there but the execution was lacking for me.
If sad lesbian romances with giant sea creatures is your thing then this will do you nicely. It's beautifully written, but not much happens (I mean, lots happens but it's pretty uneventful). The last few pages made me cry though, grief and love and loss.
This book should be my favourite book of all times. Sadly, it is not.
I found Miris passivity not very believable, the explanation of why she is so passive unsatisfying. Not even bringing her into a hospital once? Really?Also, I wish the deep sea creature would remain unseen. Or take a bigger part. Feels neither here nor there.
Left too much work for the reader. Sometimes I feel mystery is relied on to seem clever when sometimes it works in lieu of actually being bold enough to commit to stand for something. Kind of felt like the first of the new Dune films where it's setting up the story and the protein - except this doesn't have any follow up. There's so much possibility in ocean sci fi. Reading In Ascension by Martin Macinnes, which covers similar ground but gives so much imaginative yet believable detail.
4 ⭐️
I thought this would be an easy 5 stars until about halfway through when the plot slowed and everything started to fall apart. Incredible writing, but a disappointing ending, and, maybe it's just me, but the characters did not grip me in the way that I had hoped. They are likable, and their relationship is likable, but I did not care enough when everything inevitably came to an end.
Another small bother was the backstory development. Both Leah and Miri reflect on their relationships with their parents and how this shapes their present moments and Leah's felt much more fleshed out than Miri's. I'm still not sure how Miri's relationship with her mom and her illness relates to Leah other than the fact that Miri watched both of them die. It felt as though the author built two houses in a neighborhood and never built the road between them.
Regardless, I did not want to put this book down and would happily read it again, and anything Julia Armfield writes in the future.
