Our Wives Under The Sea Paperback – March 16, 2023

Miri is the wife left at home, while Leah is the wife on a mission to the bottom of the sea. Told in alternating points of view, the story mainly features Leah’s three week mission, which becomes a six month nightmare leaving indelible effects on Leah. I cannot really classify this very pleasurable read. It reads like an elegy but with subdued suspense. It feels very sci fi, but without the science. I suppose it is speculative fiction. Whatever it is, I really loved it.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but read this on a reddit recommendation. It was heartbreakingly poignant even as I bit my lip with terror. The author lulls you with the quietly sweet lifestyle Miri and Leah lead, before slivering away at it until you're left grasping for normal, but it's fallen away. You're there, with Miri and Leah, dealing with the impossible, the best way you can, knowing your world will never be the same. The end was like lucid dreaming, where you know, even after you wake, the dream will follow you into the waking world.

I'm really struggling with how I feel about this book a week after finishing it, but I think my overall emotion would be disappointment. There are elements I really enjoyed, such as some of the intentional absurdity (the therapist who doesn't seem to react to what the protagonist ever says, the blood dripping from a character's face being called normal, phone calls that never get resolved). I think it also does a really good job exploring grief over your loved ones "haunting" your life while still alive.But other elements really don't work for me. There is no resolution of the various mysteries brought up. I suppose they're not meant to matter, just the exploration of Mira's emotions, but if that were the case then I wish tantalizing plot elements weren't included that made me think the book was going to accomplish more. The horror (and body horror) does not work for me. The aforementioned absurdity I praised starts to lose its impact and the newer horror elements added throughout feel too vague or uninteresting to really grab my attention. There was one reveal in particular that made me feel like it was supposed to be very shocking, but just had me thinking, "so what?"At a certain point while reading, maybe half-way through, I realized that the book does not escalate (or devolve?) despite the chapter titles suggesting you are descending into a horrifying pitch-black depth akin to the ocean. A passage from the start and a passage from the end would feel the same. It started to feel like I was reading the same thing over and over and I began to resent how long the book felt.I really, really wanted to like this book. I even really like elements of the ending. But I didn't feel haunted by it, or scared, or thoughtful. Just disappointed because I felt like it could have been a lot more than what it was.

This was very well written and eerie tinges to it. It did give me some anxiety which can't say I loved. But overall a well crafted story about love and loss.

This is so beautifully written. It's extremely poetic and haunting. There's a level of detail and commitment to the language choices that I find really satisfying.It also scared the life out of me. It's not a particularly long book, and I was expecting to read it rather quickly. But there was too much going on that mirrored real life and so I had to put it down and take more breaks than I anticipated. I've never been a huge fan of the deep-sea exploration trope. Part of me finds it baffling that we know more about space than we do about the depths of our own planet. And yet, there's another part of me that feels it would be better if it stayed that way. If we disturb things in our ocean depths...they're a lot closer to home than light years away.So was this a book about exploring the depths of the seas or the depths of human relationships? Yes. It was that. Both of them simultaneously. Maybe to mirror just how little we understand about human connection? I don't know, but I think it did it well. How far will you go to get back to the people you loved and the life you knew? How hard do you work to honor connections and love that are changed and twisted into new shapes that you may not recognize?

The author has a very nice flow in her writing style and makes the characters very tangible.But for me the ending didn’t give me the satisfaction I hoped for after all the build up. But that’s just my personal opinion/taste.

This book was good, though it doesn't top a favorites list by any means. The pacing was slow, but inevitable, both creeping toward the end and keeping me turning pages. The haunting of someone still with us but only barely was especially poignant. Not a book I would have picked for myself without a challenge or book club behind it. If you are into dark academia or the undertow of horror... This one is for you.

Fantastic book! Read this from the library and purchased a copy for a friend as a gift