Seize The Water Cure Formulated By Sophie Mackintosh Distributed As Interactive EBook

Water Cure is the first book I selected to read from the recently releasedBooker longlist, I chose this one simply as it ended up being the first one I came across in the local bookshop, I went into this blind not even aware it was a "female dystopia",

The writing is initially compelling, told in a sort of dreamy languid prose, the surroundings could be some sort of abandoned, decrepit, beachside resort if not for the unsettling "cures".
You are never entirely sure if this family are survivors of some global apocalypse or the remnants of a cult, The story is told briefly from the changing viewpoints of three sisters, but then almost entirely from one sister, Lia, I am pleased the multivoice was dropped early on as I couldn't distinguish clearly between each sister in the beginning,

I have come to the conclusion that I am not the right reader for "feminist dystopia", I didn't enjoy The Power or The Natural Way of Things , both books that seem to me to explore a world view that boils down to, if you let them, men will drift to their base instincts and try to kill you.
I always hope for more nuance in these ideas but I didn't particularly find it here, The inevitable appearance of men in The Water Cure doesn't end well in ways that are unsurprising,

What I did admire was the prose, lyrical

and lush with some some interesting ideas and a determination not to tell you everything you might wish to know.
I enjoyed playing the game of creating my own backstory to fill in some of the gaps left by the story, in which case this will make for a great book club book.
But ultimately I found The Water Cure emotionally cold and it made me feel a little miserable actually, One could argue that this means the writer is doing their job, giving you some kind of emotional response,

This is a stunning debut novel that is deeply affecting and atmospheric but there is no getting away from the basic fact I didn't get much pleasure from it.



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This one really wasn't for me at all and originally I did stop atand it was going to be a DNF.

But I decided to persevere and forced myself to finish, Hoping it would get better,
Im sorry to say for me it didnt,
So although on paper this seemed a good fit for me in actuality it just wasn't,
I have seen reviews on "The Wate Cure" praising the brilliance of the prose and yes while I do agree the language used here had an almost fluid brilliance to it it still for me fell flat in capturing and then retaining my complete attention.

I don't mind admitting I felt a little lost in my overall comprehension here and while scratching my head still in confusion at a third in I decided enough was enough.

That was when I decided to down tools before later reconsidering as I just didnt want to be beaten by this,
I really didn't have the foggiest most of the time what the deal was here and if I'm honest I was bored and couldn't be bothered to stay the course and find out really.

It was my sheer bloody determination that got me through this,
I am if I'm honest slightly disappointed as the blurb for this was ever so intriguing but In my opinion, this was spoiled by attempting to be too highbrow in its execution keeping me in an unnecessary state of confusion that for me rather than making me want to know more just did the complete opposite.

I dont know what I expected from this but this sure wasnt it,
Maybe I'm just not clever enough to truly appreciate “The Water Cure"
I read to escape and this was just too much like hard work for me.

I'm sure there are others who will absolutely adore this strange dystopian type drama I'm just really not one of them sorry,
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of "The Water Cure" of which I have reviewed voluntary,
All opinions expressed are entirely my own,



ed By Beckie Bookworm,
sitelink facebook. com/beckiebookworm/
sitelinkwww, beckiebookworm. com sitelinkThe Water Cure was nothing like I expected, but I ended up enjoying it all the more for that, This is a vaguely unsettling, eerie tale of three sisters who were raised by their parents on a remote island to fear all men other than their father.
They believe the outside world is dangerous and toxic, and they regularly perform painful rituals and 'therapies' to cleanse themselves, But then their father vanishes without a trace and three strange men wash up on their shore, and the novel takes place over the span of the week that follows.


The biggest surprise for me was that I was expecting a sitelinkHandmaid's Taleesque feminist dystopia, but in reality I wouldn't actually describe this book as a dystopia at all.
I think a certain amount of ambiguity in this regard is intentional, especially at first, and I think there is going to be some healthy debate about how you can read this book, as a lot of questions deliberately go unanswered.
But if the appeal of dystopias to you is the worldbuilding and big picture stuff, sitelinkThe Water Cure will undoubtedly disappoint, To me this felt more like an allegorical contemporary or if not contemporary, at least set in the very nearfuture whose strength lies more in its exploration of complex interpersonal dynamics than in its merit as a dystopic text.
I'd compare it to sitelinkKing Lear or sitelinkThe Beguiled and I would not be surprised if Sofia Coppola directed an eventual film adaptation over sitelinkThe Handmaid's Tale or sitelinkThe Power.


But for me, its inability to fit neatly into the 'feminist dystopia' genre is only an asset, Sophie Mackintosh has created something strong and uniquely unsettling, Her prose is remarkably lyrical, and the insular setting she crafts is at once immersive and claustrophobic, This is a novel whose themes exist slightly below the surface, and though it has a lot to say about gender roles and social dynamics and what it means to exist in modern society as a woman, none of this leaps off the page at a quick glance.
There's an incredible amount of depth and subtlety here, especially for such a short novel,

The biggest problem really, the only problem I had with this novel was that I was occasionally unconvinced by the fact that these sisters had lived their entire lives so removed from society.
Not only were their vocabularies littered with colloquial phrases in a way that seemed at odds from how their parents spoke, at times they drew generalizations about human nature in a way that didn't ring true for someone with such a limited world view.
But this is something I found myself forgiving more and more as the novel went on, as it ultimately had the air of a fable, and I didn't find myself too hung up on the details.


Basically, don't expect another sitelinkHandmaid's Tale, but don't think it isn't worth your time because of that, I actually liked sitelinkThe Water Cure better,

Thank you to Netgalley, Doubleday Books, and Sophie Mackintosh for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review, sayfalık bir kitabın her sayfası aynı gerginlikle okunabilir mi evet,
kızları için distopik bir dünya uyduran anababa, . . binbir zalimlikle başbaşa kalmış üç kızkardeş ve sonra ıssız adaya geliverenerkek,
kadınların binlerce yıldır maruz kaldıkları daha ne kadar iyi anlatılabilirdi bilmiyorum, bedenin istekleri, sevgi ihtiyacı, zehir dolu aile ve işte bildiğimiz erkekler, . .
midemin gerilmesi bir an durmadı, sinirlerim bozuldu. erkek şiddeti kör gözüm parmağına olmadan da böyle muhteşem bir kurguyla anlatılabiliyormuş,
romanın başından itibaren köpek dişi filmini düşündüm, çok benzerlik vardı. This was a very intense book and the most confusing novels I have ever read this year,

The start of it made me feel like I am reading about being damaged by a man, being left, loveless, You know when you get heart ache you feel your family is the one and only place you can get unconditional love, no matter what you are.
Then it started getting confusing altogether,

My first issue with the novel was the point of view, It was multiple, but after one point it fixed on Lia for ages, I felt the need to switch between Lia and Grace rather than getting stuck in Lia which felt needy and teenagerlike, but I guess that was the intention.
And Sky: why was she in this book, Just another girl What was her role,

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, It was an eerietale. Dark, obsessive. Mackintosh's imagination blew me away, The practices of 'water cure' are so similar with things happening to girls all around the world, In some countries girls get slapped when they get their first period bleeding, This is to ensure they become obeying, dutiful wives, Some people banish women from their houses during menstrual bleeding, So I totally get the point in Mackintosh's dystopian world, And I was ready to give a fatbut then things got confusing, I was lost afterof the book, Sudden, action packed ending with a few flashbacks that weren't enough for my thirst of knowing, I would have preferred a more vague ending because what has been revealed isn't and won't be satisfying to a tale like that, The dreaminess of the first half was clouded by the endreveal for me,

I agree that it is Virgin Suicides meets Handmaid's Tale and in some bits I swear I could see Mackintosh winking to Angela Carter the red velvet and wolf etc.
Highlighted on my kindle! This book has been labelled as a Feminist dystopian novel, That was obviously done to initially sell more copies, but it certainly doesn't mean that by tossing a label on it, it automatically makes it true.
It really, really irritates me, when publishers attempt to get more buyers, by telling us that the book is a modernised version of Atwoods, The Handmaids Tale.
I can tell you now, that this book isn't even in the same league as The Handmaids Tale,

I enjoyed Macintosh's descriptive language, and for the most part, I appreciated her writing style, Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to get me fully invested into the bafflingly disjointed story,

The plot was immensely disorientating, It was odd, but definitely not in a satisfying sense, I found I knew most of what was going to take place, because it was THAT predictable, and that for me, does not make it an intriguing or engaging read.
There was also a great deal that was left unexplained, which made it highly confusing for me, and ultimately, rather tedious,

The torture that the girls were subjected to were strange and uncomfortable, and honestly, what was the deal with the salt This book makes out that the males are the evil form here, when it was quite obvious to me from the beginning, that it was actually the females.
.