gabberjaws's reviews
540 reviews

There are some books that come your way at the right time and Our Wives Under the Sea was very much one of those books for me. This review is about to get exceedingly personal, so buckle in folks. 

You see, when I first read this book I was in the middle of grieving my grandmother. She’d died 8 months before I’d picked this up, and the year preceding her death had been extremely difficult for me and my family. Nana was diagnosed with dementia in July 2021 and her memory and other cognitive functions began deteriorating rapidly. And then if that wasn’t bad enough, that same October, she started having difficulty breathing and was rushed to hospital, where she had to stay an entire month. When she was finally released from hospital, it was with a cancer diagnosis. Terminal.

My relationship with my grandmother had always been turbulent, and I could go on about the complexities of our relationship until the cows come home, but the only thing that matters to us today is the bottom line; I loved her. This was someone I’d known and lived with my entire life, and I had to sit and watch helplessly while she slowly forgot who I was, what she was doing, and where she was. 

When I picked up Our Wives Under the Sea, I was several months into mourning, and I didn’t expect to have the grief stirred up quite the way it was - but if you have read this book, then you see how the events of in this story paralleled everything I went through in the previous year. Reading this was a gut punch.

Our Wives Under the Sea follows Miri and Leah, a couple in the middle of an event that, as is made clear right from the beginning, will not have a happy ending. Leah’s returned from an voyage under the sea that has left her changed and changing still, and we follow Miri as she both grieves the loss of the Leah she used to know and tries to grapple with what she fears may come.

At its core, Our Wives Under the Sea is a story about grief, loss, and the fear of loss. It’s about the inevitable end of all things, all relationships - even the ones that last a lifetime. It’s an odd, but powerful tale, and because of my state of grieving when I read this, it had me sobbing uncontrollably for pages on end. 

Armfield writes with a masterful command of language. Her writing is lyrical and poetic, but without being clunky or awkward. It flowed like water, and it was incredibly easy to get lost in her words and the story she was weaving. 

This book definitely won’t be for everyone - like I said, it is a little odd. But if you like poetic, profound, slightly weird stories, then please do give this a chance. I still can’t fully put into words how cathartic and meloncholic it was to read this book (it certainly didn’t help that the two MCs reminded me of my partner and I), but Our Wives Under the Sea was a powerful little book, and I will carry this story with me for a long time. 

 

We had a Show vs Tell discussion at a book club just last week, and if I could time travel, I'd take this book back with me as an example of what not to do for a Tell-Only Narrative. I forced myself to make it to chapter four, and I was bored to tears the entire time.

I try to be kinder with debut authors, but man this really could have used an editor. The sentence structure was unnecessarily clunky and verbose, paragraphs started and ended in strange places, and the mc repeated her thoughts a lot? I had to reread multiple passages before I could parse what was actually written because a lot of this was utter word salad.

 

Full disclosure, I tried to read this book twice before this, and gave up fairly early because I wasn't in the mood for it. I didn't dislike the book by any means - just knew I wasn't in the right headspace to finish it yet. So I put it down each time, with the promise to come back to it when I was ready.

I’m glad I waited.

The Poppy War was a phenomenal read. This book is an examination of power, the horrors of war, and vengeance. It asks the question “What happens if the hero doesn’t do the noble thing. What if the hero chooses to do exactly what was done onto them” and it follows it through to the grim end.

Rin was a beautifully complex, layered character. I like her, but I am not rooting for her to succeed in her personal goals, and I think R. F Kuang is remarkably talented for being able to make me feel this way about a character. I've seen unlikable characters that I can root for, and I've enjoyed them for it. A likeable, sympathetic character who I don't want to succeed? That's hard to do, but she did it so well.

In this exceedingly grim, extremely traumatic world, Rin never feels like a hardened adult. She comes across as exactly what she is; a nineteen year old girl, a child, really, who's been through immense suffering and is understandably consumed by her thirst for vengeance and assured of her own power.

Ultimately, I think the only thing that didn't really work for me was how different quickly the tone of the book changed between the first half and the second half. Felt a little whiplashy, tbh. And I'm not sure if I understood Rin's feelings for Altan. Seeking kinship, yeah, that I get. Being in love with him? Eh.

But I digress. I think this was a truly great book, and though I'll take some time to read the rest of this trilogy, I will definitely be reading the rest. If you're able to stomach the contents and themes of this one, I think everyone interested in fantasy that has something to say should give this a go. But really folks, please don’t ignore the content warnings on this one; this book is very heavily based on the Massacre of Nanjing, and it does not sugarcoat the atrocities committed.

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9/02/2023
Not me with my whole head empty and not realizing this was based on the Nanjing Massacre UNTIL I WAS 70% OF THE WAY IN. 

 What better way to start off the new year than by reading my first Pratchett?

Yes, this is Baby’s First Pratchett, and I’m glad I was convinced me to start the Discworld series with this book, because Career Criminal Becomes (somewhat) Decent Human Being Against His Will is ABSOLUTELY my shit. I pretty much wanted to inject this book directly into my veins.

There’s not much I can say about this book that probably hasn’t been said before. It’s curious, funny, and filled with insightful commentary; just an overall good time. I’m so excited to read more of these books.

Also, Lord Vetinari is my Problematic Fave.

 You know that one episode of Friends, where Joey has to write a recommendation letter to an adoption agency on Monica and Chandler's behalf, and how, on his first attempt, he uses the thesaurus on every single word? Yeah, that's what this book felt like.

Listen. I like flowery, lyrical prose as much as the next person, but my god. Did every single line have to be this deep, mishmash of utter nonsense that barely conveyed what this author was trying to say? I went into this book expecting a profound, horror-tinged character study; what I got was a migraine.

This book was filled with little nuggets of gold like this and,,, what the fuck is ANY of this supposed to mean!?

The worst part is that I got the distinct impression of smugness from the writing. Like it thought it was clever and intensely profound with its verbosity, and that I, the reader, should be in awe at what I was reading. No, friend. I just want to understand.

If the bad writing wasn't bad enough, I was also struggling to see the point of this book. If it was just a metaphor of a rocky marriage, and finding the strength and love to work through your problems and come out the other end still together, then... it was okay,??? I guess??? But if there was something more it was trying to say, I genuinely don’t see it.

There was so much build up and so many horror elements seemingly tossed in there for the heck of it, that it ended up muddying the waters to the point that even the marriage commentary was nearly drowned out. And if the study of this rocky marriage was the only point to this book, then it was entirely too long and not at all worth it. The horror had no pay-off and the commentary was about as substantial as onion skin. 

 I have SO many thoughts on this one, so I'm gonna try and keep things as short as I can. Here, have a list.

THINGS I LIKED

- The Silent Companions
This was such a fresh take on the haunted doll/haunted painting subgenre of horror. I looked these mofos up and lemme tell you, they're creepy as shit. Not only are they super realistic portraits, but they have these weird beveled edges to make them look a little more 3 dimensional, AND they cast shadows that look human. No. thank. you.

- The Atmosphere and Vibes
I really enjoyed how Gothic this felt. Right from the first page, with Elsie in the hospital, the vibes on this were immediately suspenseful and eerie.

- Our unlikeable hero
I know she wasn't a character everybody would like, but I did love that the author chose to make Elsie sorta unlikeable. She's got a massive chip on her shoulder about being a working girl who marries above her station, and it influences a lot of the decisions she makes. I enjoyed it - I loved the layers it gave her. She wasn't a bad person per se, just a little stuck up and annoying - and I really loved that I could root for her despite not fully liking her as a person. It takes real talent to do that.

- Anne's chapters
As much as I liked Elsie, her chapters could drag on a bit. Anne's chapters were a breath of fresh air for me. I ADORED her voice and her story - right up to her unsatisfying conclusion (I'll get to that in a bit).

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE

- Hello, Ableism, my old enemy.
About halfway through the book, I started getting this sinking feeling in my gut that the author was potentially going to make the horror element an ableist thing. I was hoping she wouldn't, because I was having a good time with this book, despite it's odd pacing. Alas, Purcell did the thing, and the poor mute child who everyone considered an "aberration" because of her deformity was, in fact, just straight up evil. For no reason. Just for the fun of it. Evil for shits and giggles.

It's so tired. And it made Hetta such a weak villain? Her mom drank some herbs and had a baby when the doctors said she could never carry another, and so that baby is now evil because of it? It's so flimsy, and so unsatisfying. There were plenty of other threads the author could have followed to give this book a juicy supernatural villain, but she chose to make the disabled child ontologically evil. In 2017. It's just depressing.

- Subvert tropes of making marginalized people suffer? I don't think I will
Yes, privileged white people do suffer from the hauntings in this book, but ultimately they're the victims. The people who truly suffer in this book were marginalized. I've already talked about Hetta, a mute little girl, who is poorly treated because of her disability, but she's not the only marginalized child that gets treated dirty in the text, oh no. Two Romani children (referred to by the use of slurs in the book, because ya know, 17th century White Folk) are also killed in the book because of the character's racists beliefs.

Honestly, I think this wouldn't have stung so much if these children had all been victims of the Haunting. But none of them are - they're convenient scapegoats and throwaway characters to help further the plot and really drive home how evil Hetta is. Left a bad taste in my mouth to see these two characters thrown away, and then start haunting... people who didn't hurt them? Or do anything that resembled how they were hurt??? It made no sense honestly.

- The pacing
Because the Silent Companions started their shenanigans so early on in the book, they stopped being unnerving pretty fast. Halfway through the book I was just wishing everything would speed along and we'd get to the point where Elsie stopped denying things and set fire to the damned house already.

- Messy horror threads
Anne bought the Silent Companions from a strange shop that didn't really exist, from an owner who seemed WAY too determined to get rid of them. It leads the reader to believe that they came to The Bridge cursed, and that was the beginning of the Bainbridge downfall. BUT NO. Anne later tells us that Hetta's blood touching the bottoms of the Companions is what actually caused them to be cursed, because they absorbed her evil essence. What the fuck?!?! Make up your mind??? I genuinely don't know if this was a weird case of author and editor forgetting a detail that derails the Explanation, or if we're actually supposed to understand that no, the companions were cursed from the beginning and Hetta was made bad because of them and everyone else afterwards just made a mistake. Because if the latter is true.... whoooo boy - Purcell needed to make that WAY less vague. Especially if the alternative means people believed the disabled child was evil for the sake of it. Forget subtlety. This is a genre that's sadly been way too happy to make marginalized people the big bads - If it's not the case, make it a little clearer? Idk.

TL;DR: This wasn't a bad book. I enjoyed the heck of out of it, and found it really hard to put down. I think Purcell could be a fantastic historical fic horror writer, and this was a great debut. The Big Bad just didn't sit right with me for a lot of reasons, but largely because it was weaksauce. 10/10 would have bought Hetta as a vengeful spirit if she'd actually been through shit and was taking revenge on people who seemed to be recreating the cruelty she faced. Her being Born Evil, Baby was disappointing af. 

 Firstly, I wanna say that I hate that I enjoyed the movie adaptation of this book (fuck you, Polanski).

Secondly, there's a reason why this book and its movie are talked about as much as they are. They're good.

The general ... oddness of the events that take place in this book, as well as Levin's matter-of-fact writing make this a very tense novel. Watching this horror that Rosemary was forced to go through unfold was deeply disturbing and even sickening at times.

I'd seen the movie before I read the book, so I'm not entire sure if this was just because I was coming into things with the knowledge of how things played out, but not once did it feel like I, the reader, was supposed to believe that Rosemary was imagining things. I don't know what it was, but something about Levin's writing made it crystal clear when the villains were lying or manipulating Rosemary. You could sense their panic when something was going wrong with their plans. I appreciated that - especially in a story about a woman being gaslit and manipulated from almost the very first page, it's nice that the narration was able to say, "yeah, no, this is fucked up. These people are evil."

I also appreciated how the book highlighted Guy's shitiness. The movie sorta focused more on the Castavets, but the book is constantly showing us how fucking awful Guy is, and I for one am glad because that man is an absolute shitstain of a human being and does not deserve to have his actions downplayed.

All in all, this book was great at evoking strong feelings of discomfort, disgust, unease, and visceral hatred. Just what you want in a horror novel. 

 

I think my biggest problem is that I still can’t articulate what I expected from this book.

This is loosely based on a truly horrific real life acts that took place in a Mennonite community from 2005-2009, and the book sells itself on that. So I went into this expecting something revolutionary and poignant.

The women talking was, in and of itself revolutionary, true. And watching them hold on to their faith while coming to terms with the horrible things that had happened to them was impactful. But like I said, the book sells itself on the real life events, and I think I wanted more from this.