The Water Cure
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The Water Cure

"A gripping, sinister fable!"--Margaret Atwood, via Twitter LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER PRIZE l The Handmaid's Tale meets The Virgin Suicides in this dystopic feminist revenge fantasy about three sisters on an isolated island, raised to fear men King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. He has lain 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 two men and a boy 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? A haunting, riveting debut about the capacity for violence and the potency of female desire, The Water Cure both devastates and astonishes as it reflects our own world back at us.
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Reviews

Photo of Eva Ströberg
Eva Ströberg@cphbirdlady
2 stars
Jul 19, 2024

The water cure - Sophie Mackintosh . ⭐️⭐️ . This book is so disturbing in many levels and usually it scores pretty high on yours truly preference rating, but not this one. It’s both disturbing and quite slow in narration, so that made me even more impatient to know the ending that felt never came. . Grace, Lia and Sky are three daughters (of unknown age, we only found out about Grace’s age near the end of the book) raised in an isolated place with a mother and a father that they called King. . The daughters were taught to fear men, that men cause all the problems in the world. The parents kept them under strict diet and exposed them to many different “cures” to prevent the disease of men from reaching them. . It’s really an odd book, a near dystopian, if you can call it, but the pace is way too slow for me. . #sophiemackinstosh #thewatercure #bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #currentlyreading #2024reads #2024readingchallenge

Photo of Ditipriya Acharya
Ditipriya Acharya@diti
4 stars
May 31, 2024

Reading this at any other time would have been unsettling but reading it in 2020 during the lockdown made the experience stranger than intended. Even though the subject matter of the book has nothing to do with the pandemic.

Photo of Tish
Tish@tissas1
2 stars
Jun 25, 2023

I should have dnf this one buuut here we are.

Photo of Lacy W
Lacy W@aravenclawlibrary
3 stars
Feb 22, 2023

A special thank you goes out to Netgalley and Double Day publishing for allowing me to read this eARC early. All thoughts and opinions are my own. tw: animal abuse, child abuse, self harm, murder, child death This has go to be one of the weirdest and most out there books I've ever read. Honestly, I have no idea what in the world I read and I probably still won't know long after. Was it about a cult? Was it just a family trying to survive by any means necessary? I can't tell you because I do not know. The prose on this book was probably some of the best prose I've ever read. It was beautiful and so very haunting. Every single sentence was crafted meticulously. Each word was thought about very carefully and considered for the sentence. I can tell that there was a lot of work put into just the crafting of the sentences and I loved that. But the prose got in the way of the story at times. Because the writing was so flowery, I was often confused about what was happening. Maybe that was the purpose? To be super mysterious? I don't know. But I wish it had gotten straight to the point at times when it was needed. Especially with some of the reveals at the end. I just wanted to know what happened. Overall, this is just one of those books you got to read for yourself. I know that this is a super short review but I can't really say much about this book without giving it all away. This is really all I can tell you. Despite my average rating, I can't wait to see what else Sophie Mackintosh writes next.

Photo of Alexa M
Alexa M@alexasversion
4 stars
Feb 6, 2023

beautiful writing style! the overall plot was nothing crazy amazing but i enjoyed reading this. this read more as cult fiction-esque than dystopian because we don't see the "outside world" at all. but regardless- i think the book did what it set out to do and i liked it!

Photo of Rachel Kanyid
Rachel Kanyid@mccallmekanyid
3 stars
Jan 15, 2023

Not even sure what entirely to think of this book. It was interesting... But I don't know.

Photo of Marloes
Marloes@subtlebookish
1 star
Dec 10, 2022

This book is marked as feminist, but it isn't. It's making mountains out of molehills and being as purposefully hurt as possible over small slights. It's being cruel to a group of people, to those you would label as "others" who are different from yourself. And that's not ok.

Photo of Fraser Simons
Fraser Simons@frasersimons
4 stars
Jun 9, 2022

Interesting concept and I liked the prose a lot.

Photo of ✨Tyler ✨
✨Tyler ✨@timecompactor
2 stars
Mar 17, 2022

when I saw the Margaret Atwood review on the cover, I should have known I wasn't going to like this book. I didn't like handmaid's tale and I didn't like this.

Photo of Maureen Wadsworth
Maureen Wadsworth @maurreads
1 star
Mar 10, 2022

Couldn't finish it, didn't want to finish it, but I made myself finish it. One word- disappointed.

Photo of Haley McDowell
Haley McDowell@moleawhack
4 stars
Jan 10, 2022

Oh my god

Photo of Charlotte Rayfield
Charlotte Rayfield@rollingwheelsandbooks
4 stars
Dec 13, 2021

Let me be clear. This book is a five star book. But it is unsettling. A story that sticks just underneath your rib cage, lodged as some sort of reminder. It’s a book about love. And what that does to you. Parents desire to protect their children. Something so simple turning sour. What happens when love is had. When humans become monsters. You start this book assuming the men are the only monsters, but you would be wrong. It’s about being desperate for something and how damaging is that can be. I don’t even know what that was. All I know is I bought it this afternoon and inhaled it. Nothing is clear in this book. Answers aren’t given. But maybe that’s the point. To leave you just as touch starved and desperate as the sisters. Either way, this book and it’s prose will stick to my soul for a while.

Photo of Jennifer Rittall
Jennifer Rittall@jdrlovestoread
2 stars
Dec 10, 2021

I almost didn’t finish this one. Too many questions made me keep reading until the but unfortunately they remain unanswered.

Photo of Olivera Mitić
Olivera Mitić@olyschka
1 star
Nov 24, 2021

Ne znam kakav odnos Sofi Makintoš ima sa majkom and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

Photo of Léa Beauchemin-Laporte
Léa Beauchemin-Laporte@bethebluebook
3 stars
Oct 25, 2021

3.5/5

Photo of Chelsea White
Chelsea White@itschelseaw
2 stars
Sep 26, 2021

*2.5 stars* I was truly excited to read this book, but felt like I had to trudge through after just a few pages. While there are references to the outside world, mostly told from the Mother’s perspective (I’m assuming), there is no great reasoning for WHY they moved to an island. Was there a major shift in society that allowed men to be cruel and abusive toward women? Or is it status quo that King and the Mother want to move from? This is barely touching on how abusive King and another are to these girls (women? They mention Grace’s age just once.) to the point that they are all almost the same person, and they all seem hollow. I had hoped that this novel would truly live up to the dystopian label, but instead it was just a thinly veiled book semi-romanticizing abuse (until the girls learned what the men had been sent to do), and an ode to the patriarchy the island had been set up to avoid. All the narration was so similar in tone that I had to listen to this book to really grasp the differences in the characters, and even then it was a little difficult.

Photo of Rachel
Rachel@wellreadcatlady
3 stars
Aug 13, 2021

I have mixed feelings towards The Water Cure. This book has been hyped up as a feminist dystopia and it really isn't by any means. Three women live on an island with their mother and "King" aka their dad, because according to the vague prose this book is riddled with, there is some kind of toxin that hurts women and men give it off (????). Of course the women only know this because it is what they have been told by their parents, nothing fishy there.... King goes missing and is assumed dead. Two men and a boy end up on their remote island seeking shelter. From the very start of the book the reader can feel something is off on the story the daughters are being told about toxins, which immediately eliminates the feminist dystopia ruse and I can't help but feel it got that label to get the book more attention or try to act like it is a feminist dystopian so the big surprise is a shock, in which case the story immediately falls apart). The vagueness of the prose style writing was a bit annoying as well. 3 stars because it kept my interest, but not much else.

Photo of Gordon McLean
Gordon McLean@gordon
5 stars
Jun 1, 2021

Stunning The type of book you hope never ends. Words so carefully chosen and placed made this a sumptuous read, the intriguing story pulling you along. Glorious.

Photo of Tabitha T
Tabitha T@tabtalleyitha
3.5 stars
Sep 6, 2023
Photo of Charlotte Long
Charlotte Long@charlotte_long
3 stars
Jul 26, 2022
Photo of Gabrielle Griffiths
Gabrielle Griffiths@gabri_elle
4 stars
Jun 18, 2022
+6
Photo of Samantha Plakun
Samantha Plakun@samanthaplakun
5 stars
Jul 6, 2024
Photo of Barış Yarsel
Barış Yarsel@pagan
4 stars
Jun 15, 2024
Photo of Lina.
Lina.@murmuration
4 stars
Jun 8, 2024

Highlights

Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

What must it be like, to live in a world that wants to kill you? Where every breath is an afront?

Page 138
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

'A ghost, out on the sea,” and she sits up as if she has been expecting it.

Page 118
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

I turn away and stare at the sea, trying to find the point where I let the baby go. The supple water is forever changing. It's almost like it never happened, which gives me hope that one day it will be like it never happened.

Page 117
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

“I'm giving him back to you”, I tell the sea. There is no answer as I lower my arms into the water up to the elbow. The small parcel falls down through the water. Burial at Sea. The only honourable option.

Page 116
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

Crying lays you low and vulnerable, racks your body. If water is the cure for what ails us, the water that comes from our own faces and hearts is the wrong sort. It has absorbed our pain and is dangerous to let loose

Page 68
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

We stayed there until the tide came up and reached the ashes, turned them into sludge.

Page 53

Water washes the drawings away. Takes away trauma/painful memories.

Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

Once I was caughtopening one of the magazines. […] Though I didn't make it past the second page I was still required to wear latex gloves for the rest of that week in case I contaminated anyone, and I was banned from dinner for the rest of the week too. My sisters brought me discs of sweatily buttered bread and dry fish that they had hidden in their laps. Grace accompanied her offerings with strict words about how stupid I was; Sky brought hers with sincere guilt about raising the alarm. I forgave her easily because the scream was proof of concern, of love, the same way she would have screamed had a viper been raising its head, fangs bared towards my outstretched hand.

Page 31
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

We unloaded the boat as he dragged his body upstairs to soak in the tub, to let the scum of the outside world fall away. By the time he came back down for dinner he was a little livelier

Page 31
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

You see?' he would tell us as we surrounded the fallen sister, as we flicked water against skin. 'You see how quickly you'd die out there?"

Page 29

water for healing

Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

We were not supposed to watch. UIe The women drank the salt water first, their faces pained. Than threw up repeatedly into the buckets. Their bodies convulsed They lay on the floor but Mother helped them up, insistent. They rinsed their mouths, spat. Then they drank from the second row, glas after glass of our good and pure water, the water that came from our taps like a miracle, the water that the sprinklers cast out in the early dusk like a veil across the garden. The water we ourselves drank by the pint first thing every morning, Mother watching our throats as we swallowed. The women took it into themselves. It was a start. The water flamed their cells and blood. Soon the glasses were all empty.

Page 22
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

Strong feelings weaken you, open up your body like a wound. It takes we have learned how to dampen them down, how to practie vigilance and regular therapies to hold them at bay. Over the years as diagl out the bad feel to lick the skin of my f pain go. release emotion under strict conditions only, how to own our pain can cough it into muslin, trap it as bubbles under the water. let it from my very blood.

Page 18
Photo of Abigail Mills
Abigail Mills@abigailmills

My feelings are limping, wretched things. Underwater., staring at the stained tiles, I scream as loudly as I can. The water kills the e Opening my eyes, I turn on to my back and watch the sun throuel. sound. the water, a rippling orb of light. It is at times like these that I, can imagine holding myself down until the water floods my lungs, that I realize it wouldn't even be so hard. The real trick is how and why we continue surviving at all

Page 12

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