What an eerie read! This is the story of the aftermath of an oceanic exploration that goes wrong but the details of the journey are eked out slowly over the course of the book. The pace is just right; you just can't seem to quite figure out what happened until the end but you know it's bad! And what follows for these characters is discomfiting. I thought the storylines of the family members who were waiting for their loved ones was so touching. The author does such a good job of describing their helplessness and guilt, both when their family members are missing but also when they return home. The hints at corporate wrongdoing really lend themselves to the tone of the book; you just always feel a little off-kilter. This was a great read!

First, let me thank Flatiron Books and Netgalley for a review copy.

SYNOPSIS: Leah returns from a deep sea mission that was catastrophic. Miri thinks she got her wife back, but she didn't.. Leah is in no way the same person from when she left. What happened while Leah was on that vessel has clearly impacted her and she brought it back with her when she returned home.

Miri slowly comes to grasp that whatever life they had prior to Leah leaving for the mission is gone.

REVIEW: Leah was supposed to be gone on a quick mission, but in all actuality was gone for six months. When she got back, she began behaving strangely. She won't leave the bathroom, turning on the water faucets, as that seems to be the only thing that brings her comfort. She refuses to eat food, yet continuously craves salt water. Miri is her partner, but begins living a life alone, watching her wife slowly begin to disappear before her eyes. She wonders what truly happened when her wife was underwater?

How do you watch the person you love slowly fade away through no fault of your own? How do you watch them slowly slip away while it is completely out of your control?

The book flip flops between Miri's narration and Leah's journals. I wish that we were given more answers, but it truly made an impact that I won't forget.

VERDICT: 4 STARS

When a submarine expedition goes wrong, a marine biologist comes back home to her wife oddly and terrifyingly different. What follows is the search for answers into what happened below the sea.

This was a deeply poetic literary horror novel and I can't even really tell you what I read. It alternately intrigued and confused me at the same time. The writing is beautiful and haunting- the unknown cause and shifting of Miri's wife (Leah) after coming home from the exploration is spine chilling. This is definitely a niche genre and read, I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone, but it's absolutely beautiful and will blossom with the right audience. Even though I still don't necessarily understand everything I read, I can appreciate the prose and by the end I was all in my feels.

Fascinating story! Wonderful writer! What a way to tell a story.

Thank you for this advanced copy.

The rating may not be because of the story, but rather it confirmed that I can't read horror. It's not my jam, although I try when others are giving it good feedback.

A literary horror that had me either bored and zoning out or completely enthralled. This was no ordinary horror novel, but something beautiful in prose. I was freaked out most of the time and I loved it. Very short, but not sweet.

“The space around us is a claw half grasped, holding tight without quite crushing, and I wish, in the idle way I always wish these days, that I felt more confident in my ability to breathe.”

Our Wives Under the Sea is one of those stories that defies genre classification. It’s claustrophobic with scenes of body horror—bleeding teeth, closing passageways—but with the introspection and prose of literary fiction. It’s beautiful, moving, and intensely eerie. This novel prioritizes language and atmosphere in a way that won’t work for all readers (it’s a slow-burn for sure) but it certainly worked for me.

The novel looks at different types of grief, almost asking the reader to measure them against each other, and doesn’t offer any answers, but presents everything and quietly steps away to leave you with your thoughts. Finishing the book left me feeling both melancholic and disoriented, which is what I think the book aims to do.

I feel very conflicted about this read.
On the positive side, of which there is many, this is a really brilliantly crafted story about sapphic love and complicated grief. It perfectly captures the awful feeling of not knowing, the trying to make meaning, the helplessness. It also captures the effort it takes to be the one that reaches out, to seek the help that is needed when all you want to do is hide.. The story captures all these complex feelings in really subtle and highly specific ways.
The story also posits this interesting concept of a lovecraftian horror under the sea and a nefarious organization. Unfortunately, this is where it falls apart. Obviously the grief is the main focus, but it does feel that these concepts were underdeveloped in comparison. The author created a hard balance, and did not quite reach it.

Beautiful. Weird. Haunting. Perfectly strange and ardently romantic.

What a vehicle for commentary on relationships, love, loss, grief, time…

This was my favorite book of last year. It was so weird, and so ominous, and yet so full of love and wonder. I couldn't figure out how Armfield was going to end it in a satisfying way and I've come around to liking the ending. It was also BEAUTIFULLY written and I would read anything by her for the rest of time.

haunting, eloquent horror novel with a light touch on the body horror aspects (i thank you for that, julia, i am just a girl who gets queasy). one of the best novels of 2002, in my opinion. definitely worth your time, even if you're a queasy girl like me who likes horror but can't stand gory stuff. (it's not that bad i promise)

This title immediately drew me in and the story delivered. I thoroughly enjoy gothic tales written by women, (I.e. anything Shirley Jackson) and this is an inventive and modern twist on the genre. The house as the scary monster becomes the submarine under the sea. The author goes back and forth between what happened and what results in a dance leading up to a final moment of palpable tension.

This is a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep sea. There were a lot of good things about this book. The characters were complex. I love Miri and Leah. The story was haunting and had almost a horror aspect. My issues were the pace. I found it to be slow and boring at times. Other times I couldn't look away. I wish there was more of a conclusion to the story. I do recommend it!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Flatiron Books for the gifted e-book! ❤️

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield defies characterization in some ways. It's a sapphic love story meets surrealist horror mash up. With that billing, you can imagine that this book won't be for all readers. It's a bit of a slower burn read with some ambiguity within the storylines. I can't honestly say I loved it, but it did make me think.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Did not love this one, tried to read several times and ultimately was not drawn in.. #bookstagram. #lovetoread

This book just didn't really draw me in. I found the premise intriguing, but the way the story was told was too abstract and left me with too many questions.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield is a sapphic love, loss and grief story with gothic undertones and I am here for it! I thought it was beautifully written, though strange and unsettling at times. Leah has returned home after a failed deep sea mission and it's changed her dramatically. Miri, her wife, is trying to navigate life now with the changed Leah. I've never read anything like this book, but I am definitely going to seek out more from Ms. Armfield.

I hated this book. I know a lot of friends who loved it, but I simply couldn't get into it. The plot was vague and hard to follow, and I found a lot of the spooky happenings too subtle to be scary.

Wow!! I did not expect to love this as much as I did. What can only be described as an ODD plot was delivered in such a beautifully paced, nuanced way that I was totally swept away in the world of this novel. I would recommend it to anyone.

I wanted so badly to love this book and I did like it - but I struggled too much with the pacing and characterization to love it. The creeping horror and buildup to the big reveal was done well, but Miri's inaction until the last chapter was so frustrating to me and I felt like there was such an unbalanced power dynamic in Miri and Leah's relationship that I just couldn't root for them to be together. Coupling this with Miri's one-sided relationships with the rest of her friends meant I rushed through her POV chapters to get back to Leah's.