Our Wives Under the Sea

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.