Our Wives Under the Sea cover
stargazer

Book Review: Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

The last couple of months have been filled with best-books-of-2022 posts and videos. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield was one of the books, which repeatedly popped up on such lists.

“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.” 

The story is narrated by Miri and her wife Leah. The latter has returned home from a deep-sea expedition, which went horribly wrong. And Leah has changed. Miri keeps talking about how she isn’t “my Leah” anymore. We follow Miri and Leah becoming increasingly estranged to each other and gradually we learn more about what happened on the fatal diving expedition to the deep sea.

Our Wives Under the Sea is a strange, sad, stunningly beautiful, fable-like piece of literature. It can be read as an allegory of losing a loved one, growing apart, feeling separated even when together and the fear of letting go. But I suspect it’s one of these stories, each reader will put their own meaning into. Body horror, an important part of the narrative, isn’t usually my thing. And maybe, just maybe, the novel went a bit overboard with the richness of metaphors. However, I can easily forgive all that, because I was completely mesmerised by the beautiful writing and the strangeness of the story.

The combination of body horror, lyrical writing, fable-like storytelling, modern relationship issues and – believe it or not – humour shouldn’t work on paper. Perhaps it only appeals to a certain subset of readers. But for me, it was just right.

“I used to think there was such a thing as emptiness, that there were places in the world one could go and be alone. This, I think, is still true, but the error in my reasoning was to assume that alone was somewhere you could go, rather than somewhere you had to be left.” 

Rating: 5 out of 5.
Title: Our Wives Under the Sea [2022]
Author: Julia Armfield 
Format: Audiobook, narrated by Annabel Baldwin, Robyn Holdaway
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Horror

20 comments

    • It really was interesting, quite unique I think. Hope you will enjoy it, if you decide to pick it up! 🙂

  2. I don’t seem able to find my review of this book, which I attempted last year. I’m out of step, because I completely failed to finish it. I probably should attempt it again, because I AM out of step, aren’t I?

    • I don’t think there is such a thing as being out of step, when it comes to art and literature. We all have different taste and preferences and surely that is how it should be? I’ve often failed to gel with very popular books.

    • Yes, it is staggering and we never get to read a fraction of them in our lifetimes. But at least we never run out of things to read!

  4. I agree this novel was very good in a weird but neat, touching kind of way. There were various passages throughout the book that were worth marking down … about the world we live in, or of life and love that were right on. And as it went on I got more invested in the story. I’m glad you liked it so much. Yay. I will read whatever the author puts out next. She’s someone to watch.

    • Yes, the book was very quotable and it also made me think. I did predict the ending, but somehow it didn’t mater with that kind of story. Same, I will definitely look out for whatever she might write in the future.

    • Yes, but in a way it was also light – very beautiful and not too dark despite the subject matter. Nothing like the one I am reading at the moment, that one is pure misery!

  6. I started this but for some reason didn’t finish it … It might be because I was reading on Kindle, and I really struggle with Kindle books for some reason

    • It was unusual and certainly a story I won’t forget in a hurry! 😀

Comments are closed.