10 books like Our Wives Under the Sea

This dark fantasy book had me sobbing more than once, thanks to some great writing and the personal resonance it had for me at the time of reading. It’s marketed as YA fiction, but don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only for young adults—it’s for everyone, especially if they’re struggling with grief. Siobhan Dowd came up with the story while fighting cancer and sadly died before it could be written, but Patrick Ness has created something beautiful, melancholy, and strangely uplifting from her original idea, in which the young Connor befriends a monster who tells him three stories before forcing Connor to tell one of his own. It explores the complexities of grief with honesty and sensitivity. It’s also beautifully illustrated by Jim Kay.

I came to this one after watching and loving the television version and found the book even more fulfilling (although very different). It focuses on what happens when millions of people suddenly disappear from the world’s population and it looks not only at how people deal with this massive loss but also how they deal with the mystery of it, the not knowing why. People don’t only lose loved ones in this book but also their own sense of how the world should work, leaving them with a lot to deal with. I loved the characters, the tight focus on one community (and mostly one family within that community), and I loved how Perrotta made such a wild possibility seem entirely plausible.

This is one of the best collections I’ve ever read, and I’ve read it a few times now. These are emotionally intimate stories, bleak but beautiful. Dines really knows how to write convincing, troubled characters, people you will care about and suffer with as they struggle with the losses life forces upon them, and while each of the stories stands alone, there are connections between many of them which serves to build on your relationship with these characters. This is a debut collection, but every story has clearly been written by someone who has mastered their craft. Dines knows exactly what he’s doing, and what he’s doing is making you care, making you feel, and making you realise you are not alone. I love this book.

There’s so much to love about this book. Every story here is brilliant, and while sadness is the thread running through all of them, I’d say they also deal with issues of loss or the pain of losing, and the things we do to cope. I’ve loved Mauro’s writing from day one, and this collection gathers her best into a powerful volume that does indeed sing. It filled and then broke my heart. The book is worth buying for the award-winning story "Looking for Laika" alone, but there really isn’t a single story here that isn’t a masterclass in writing, and not a single one that doesn’t move the reader to feel the sadness and feel it deeply. I can’t wait for whatever Laura Mauro does next.

Stone Fruit is such a pleasure to flip through and enjoy for its beautiful drawings and line work. In the story the main character works through reconciling their relationship with their partner and themselves and their identity. The bond that they have with their niece is about ways of connecting, facing reality, and the cathartic potential of our creative minds. As a queer parent I really connected with how the relationship between the characters is about what we gift each other between generations or among peers, transcending the traditional family structures.

Elevation grabbed me from its starting premise until its last memorable scene. A flabby protagonist reveals to a doctor friend that his weight, as shown on his scale, is steadily dropping despite his unchanged appearance. In effect, he is less and less affected by gravity. Because his muscles have adapted to manage his large size, as his gravitational weight decreases he gains disproportionate agility and stamina, to the extent that he becomes a formidable marathon runner which amazes everyone who sees him. He develops close bonds with two women with whom he previously conflicted and they and his doctor friend help him to deal with his situation which becomes perilous as his weight approaches zero. 

While Come With Me has less paranormal in its blend, the book’s recipe is chock-full of foreboding suspense, eerie folklore, amateur sleuthing, and contemporary issues. Aaron Decker’s wife is tragically killed in a mass shooting. After five years of marriage, he thinks he knew her. But then he finds her padlocked hope chest. Inside are files about unsolved murders, all women victims. Is a serial killer on the loose? And why or how was his wife involved? Aaron follows the trail she left behind. Goosebumps suggest he’s not alone. Or are they from the dark secrets he unveils? Aaron’s narration is authentic and close—so close that readers eavesdrop on him speaking directly to his dead wife. Incredibly raw. Come With Me is masterful at building atmospheric and emotional tension.

This is the first book to feature gay grandfathers, an overlooked and under-represented population in the literature. It is based on the author’s actual family experience, which allows the reader to experience the real emotions experienced by the characters. The author carefully takes the reader on a journey that will be relatable to anyone with an LGBTQ+ family member. This is a story that needs to be told and Schanke and Schanke do it beautifully.

This book tells an incredible story—not just of a same-sex marriage in the early 19th century, which would be remarkable enough, but also of the extent to which this couple was accepted by their community and family. Cleves found a motherlode of diaries and letters that document their lives together, their ability to earn a living during an era when most women relied on male breadwinners, their mutual love of reading and writing poetry, and the ways they sought to reconcile their love with their religious faith. I can’t emphasize enough how many times I paused to marvel at what Cleves had found in her research, and the care with which she reconstructed the lives of these two women who loved one another.

This is the first of a trilogy of which any book in the series is worth reading. In this farce written long before marriage equality, a gay man hatches an outlandish scheme to throw a wedding, just for the expensive gifts. What follows is a comedy that incorporates blackmail and the mafia. You read this novel for pure pleasure, enjoying the clever one-liners while the plot spirals out of control. Flamboyant, camp, and ridiculously funny.