THE WATER CURE

REVIEW: I wanted to read the books from 'Man Booker Prize 2018 Longlist' & for it's astonishing blurb & unique concept, I picked it.It is book that will actually leave you stunned & disturbed. You can feel it's shock but hardly can express it. You can't love it, hate it or ignore it. Literally I have to write another novel to explain this work of art. But believe me it's not ordinary. Let's discuss some little things without spoilling it's storyline.The novel has a very very disturbing plot, I will not say it unusual, but surely disturbing - A quite island, a big house, three sisters, one 'caring' father, a mother, their complex relationship [more complex than you ever imagine], the terrible outer world, the father's desperate effortd to save his 'daughters' from the toxic, their weird culture, practice and the water cure.The story follows the father's death, mother disappearance, the men's arrival & the revelation and realization of the sisters at last.From the very first sentence to the last, you can call this novel as the 'Longest & Most Beautiful Poem' ! The young and brilliant author has a unique storytelling capacity, she told the story in a mesmerizing poetic style. I failed to select any quotes, as every sentence of the book is a masterpiece itself. The fruition lied here. You have to pick the book just to experience this grand storytelling, the dreamy description, the hypnotic setting.The story is absolutely complex and disturbing. You have to have a strong heart and mind to read this. You need to keep calm to match the level of this brilliant writing. I don't want to spoil the storyline, but there is a lot of weird practice!The novel is actually an allegory, you can't relate to the plot, but the overall feeling and conclusion is universal, it told a very fact in a unreal manner. I strongly believe it to be a feminine dystopian. Absolutely.The highlight of this art piece is that it didn't reveal anything. Unlike other novel it leaved all the questions unanswered. You can't pick who was right, who was wrong, why these happened! Every readers can find his/her own way to explain this. The story was through the three sisters' eyes, so the author never described anything what they can't see. So you have to live in the puzzle world and you can't see the actual happening.The detailing and plot building was extraordinary and passionate. The author created magic everywhere - black magic, dark.Overall it's a saga of three sisters to get independence, and in the course to get it came the realization, the ultimate truth of life - Be together but dream alone.So for it's disturbing plot this is not everyone's cup of coffee, and the author didn't write it for everyone, off course! Ultimately 'The Water Cure' is a sharp scream of three loved, tortured & broken soul, the psychological epic, which told a very usual fact in a very unusual way. A masterstroke of its kind.Overall Rating : 4/5

Book quality is good.Content: Not a easy read. The depiction of toxic masculinity as a real toxic substance is moving. The characters are strong and show how distrubing it can be to be surrounded by toxic people and beliefs.

The book is a beautiful piece of work. Totally binge worthy! But it arrived in a used and dirty condition.

We follows 3 sisters, Grace, Lia & Sky who have been isolated from the rest of the world by their Mother (Unnamed) & Father (King). They live in an abandoned resort in a remote island & undergo various painful rituals (drinking salt water, playing the drowning game, sewing their skin to a sack) to cleanse them of any 'toxins' of the outside world.Soon King goes missing (presumed dead) & 2 men and a boy wash up on the shore with 'hungry gazes' & forthcoming destruction.The story is told from the POV of the sisters. Grace, the eldest is cold & unforgiving. Lia, the middle one is an emotional wreck & longs to be loved but physically the toughest. Sky, the youngest is the most loved in the family.Sophie Mackintosh is a brilliant writer. The book is written in beautiful prose and the metaphors are woven into the narrative as yarn into a fabric. The story celebrates sisterhood and talks about gender dynamics. The queer reading experience and the ambiguity throughout the narrative is intentional (I suppose) and makes the book a compelling read leaving the readers with many questions about the past and future of the sisters to figure it out on their own. The notes of the women(who seek safety on this island and are asked to get involved in the cult-like cleansing rituals by the mother & King) on how they were abused by men showcases Mackintosh as a talented writer. The combination of isolation & abuse that these sisters go through (even though they seem fine with it but unknowingly suffer various mental health issues) is difficult to read about but described skillfully.That being said, the things that I did not like about the story is it's so predictable right from the start. The relationship that one of the daughters developed with a man was cliché and makes you cringe. The way that it has been described as a Feminist Dystopia does not work for me.Do I recommend? Well it depends. Even though the reading experience was good, I don't know if the story will stick with me. If you're expecting a powerful feminist dystopia then this one's not for you.

“She was just like every other woman. Eager and tender-hearted. That knot of grief in her chest begging to be undone.” - The Water Cure.King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. He has laid the barbed wire; he has anchored the buoys in the water; he has marked out a clear message: Do not enter. Or viewed from another angle: Not safe to leave. Here women are protected from the chaos and violence of men on the mainland. The cult-like rituals and therapies they endure fortify them from the spreading toxicity of a degrading world. But when their father, the only man they’ve ever seen, disappears, they retreat further inward until the day three strange men wash ashore. Over the span of one blistering hot week, a psychological cat-and-mouse game plays out. Sexual tensions and sibling rivalries flare as the sisters confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent. Can they survive the men?This is a book that I have been wanting to read FOREVER. And I’m glad I finally got to it. This story focuses on three sisters who live on a secluded island with their parents away from the world. It is a bit of a dystopian tale and really takes a focus on the sister’s relationships with one another, their parents, and their unexpected visitors. I loved the gritty, raw complicated relationships between the siblings and their unusual life drew me into the story. This was definitely a tense read at times and there are some content warnings to be aware of. However, I felt the writing of this book was so good and I cannot wait to read another story from Sophie Mackintosh.

Thought this book was strange but a very powerful statement on the resilience of very young women.

The book is original and well written. Impossible not to recogise the skill of the story teller. Lesser ratings in the reviews almost certainly reflect discomit with the story not the quality of the work. Do read it but not if you don't want to be psychologically challenged

Liked this book, it was an interesting story and very engaging

It’s hard to say I loved this book*, but it will be with me for a long time to come. I did love the spare prose, the clean lines of this book, and its subtleties. Mackintosh has created a world in which the the worst extremes of our culture are exaggerated and extrapolated, where masculinity is truly toxic and women’s emotions are a danger that must be tightly controlled. Or at least that’s what the trio of sisters at the center of this novel have been convinced of.There are echoes of Eve and a fall in this book: a strange Eden where those inside the garden are protected by flaming boundary lines, where women come to find salvation, where women suffer because they are women, yearn because they are women, and suffer because they yearn.But these women have what Eve did not—sisters. *I didn’t love it because it felt a little like having the negative space in my everyday word revealed for all to see, and yet it should be said I think this is a beautiful and important book.