#BUT generally these stories also involve some kind of resolution to the sci-fi/fantasy elements as WELL

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

I read a while ago that you were reading 'our wives under the sea'. I've also recently finished the book and was wondering what you thought of the ending?

*Feel free to ignore this ask if you haven't finished it yet! I'm just curious ☺️*

ahh thank you for asking! i was a little disappointed with the ending, but i don't think it was bad, i just think it was different from my expectations of it

i loved the concept of the book, but i come from a background of reading more traditional science fiction and i think that was what i was expecting/hoping for from that premise. idk about you but i REALLY wanted to know what the hell was going on!! shady organisations sending marine biologists to some mysterious part of the ocean, and when they come back they're like. possessed or something and then they turn into water? or into fish or something? absolutely intriguing!!! and of course my gut reaction to that mystery was to want to see it solved, so i was a little disappointed when the ending left so many questions unanswered

BUT i do realise that that is simply not the story that armfield was intending to tell. the sci-fi/fantasy elements are just a vehicle to tell a deeper emotional story about love and grief, and to that effect it doesn't actually matter that they're not 'solved', since the central conflict of the novel is miri's inability to let go of the past/of leah, rather than the mystery of what the hell was going on in the first place

i read a book last year called the first time lauren pailing died, and it was about this girl stuck in this weird time loop where every time she died she was reborn into another version of herself, which sounded FASCINATING, but it took a similar route to our wives under the sea in that the time loop was a fairly unimportant device to tell more important stories on interpersonal/emotional themes, and the time loop/multiverse situation was never really explained or solved in any way

and i do 100% think that's a valid narrative choice!!!!! but also as a reader who loves sci-fi i think it's possible to still include those themes AND solve the mystery, and so both books left me feeling slightly unsatisfied despite being really good overall

#sorry that this is kinda long and weird lmao idek if this is what you were asking about #i think the blurbs of these kinds of books could do a better job of representing them #because i am absolutely ok with ambiguous endings!!! i just don't want to be left with one when i'm expecting ANSWERS #also to clarify i AM aware that pretty much all sci-fi/fantasy themes are just plot mechanisms to explore larger themes #BUT generally these stories also involve some kind of resolution to the sci-fi/fantasy elements as WELL #and so i think it's an especially interesting decision for these writers to decide those things Don't Matter at all #and maybe they don't really! who am i to say... maybe i've been conditioned and i need to think outside the box #i am slightly wine drunk i'm sorry anon i'll stop rambling now #but thank u for asking ily <3 #🧃