The Water Cure

A Novel

By: Sophie Mackintosh

Narrated by: Hannah Murray, Gemma Whelan, Morfydd Clark

“A gripping, sinister fable!” —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
NPR • GLAMOUR • GOOD HOUSEKEEPING • LIT HUB • THRILLIST

King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. Here on his island, 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 King disappears and two men and a boy wash ashore, the sisters’ safe world begins to unravel. 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 are forced to confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent.

A haunting, riveting debut, The Water Cure is a fiercely poetic feminist revenge fantasy that’s a startling reflection of our time.

Critic reviews

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2019 BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, VOGUE, WASHINGTON POST, HUFFINGTON POST, VULTURE, LITHUB, REFINERY29 and more

"Ingenious and incendiary"
—THE NEW YORKER

“Sensational…Mackintosh’s taut novel turns a keen, unsparing eye on violence, patriarchy, and desire.”
—ESQUIRE (25 Most Anticipated Books of 2019)

“Eerily beautiful, this strange, unsettling novel creeps up and grabs hold of you.”
—PAULA HAWKINS, New York Times bestselling author of GIRL ON THE TRAIN

“An extraordinary otherworldly debut… [Mackintosh] is writing the way that Sofia Coppola would shoot the end of the world: Everything is luminous.”
—THE GUARDIAN

“[A] chilling, beautifully written novel…the tautness and tension of the writing are staggering.”
—Judges Panel Citation, the MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018

“Mackintosh’s novel follows in the footsteps of The Handmaid’s Tale…but this debut has its own alluring style, which has prompted comparisons to The Virgin Suicides for its gauzy, heady sexuality; lacy, precise prose; and the luminous sisters at its core.”
—VOGUE

“Mackintosh’s entry [into feminist dystopian fiction] is among the best, not least because it gets to the root of the genre by dissecting a warped utopia…Three men arrive on the island, and twists ensue — not cheap pyrotechnics but reversals of moral structure, revelations that demonstrate why the subtlest fiction is often the most powerful.”
—VULTURE

"Sophie Mackintosh casts an exquisite, irresistible spell in her thrilling debut. Ablaze with beauty, desire, and dread, The Water Cure is a shattering look at patriarchal control and how far three sisters will go to free themselves from it".
—LENI ZUMAS, author of RED CLOCKS

“At once dreamy and disturbing, The Water Cure is a gripping work, a dizzying labyrinth of conflicting realities.”
—HELEN PHILIPS, author of THE BEAUTIFUL BUREAUCRAT

"Creepy and sexy in equal measure, The Water Cure is a hypnotic portrait of three young women waking up to the world, desire, and the power of their bodies."
—THE INDEPENDENT

GOING TO NEED AN ANTIDOTE FOR THIS PARTICULAR CURE

I have always been dubious when it comes to audiobooks. How can anyone "read" a book without the actual, visceral aspects of reading: the intensity of the black on white of the words, the smell of the paper, turning the pages. Anything other than physically holding the work of art that is a book feels like cheating, but with an hour-long commute, I had to give audiobooks a try.

This was NOT the one to start with, however.

I'm an avid reader, and always have been. I like pretty much anything, though lean towards stories with female main characters, no matter how their journey unfolds. I'm not averse to historical or post-apocalyptic, and I don't shy away from anything with intense emotions, be they sadness or joy. I'm not at all sure where The Water Cure falls within all of this, and I don't think anyone could part/parcel it out to fit any particular category.

STORY: Seems like it was meant to be deep and powerful; was instead bland, drawn-out, confusing, and left me feeling frustratingly unsatisfied. I literally forced myself to get through this book; it was free and I still felt taken.

NARRATION: Could not tell the difference between the narrators or their stories. I've heard one narrator voice five different characters and was nowhere near as I was confused as three different narrators voicing four different people.

Since The Water Cure I have listened to more than 10 other audiobooks, and this remains the most disappointing by far. It was also the shortest read by at least an hour from my others, and yet still felt longer than a 10-day root canal.

RECOMMEND TO A FRIEND? Yeah, depends on what they've done to me and how badly I want to return the favor.

Frustrating

Getting through this story was like trying to get an answer out of a politician . You both know what’s going on m but he will never just come out and say it. It was a big disappointment. The prose was so lyrical and the reading was so well done that I stuck with it hoping it would get better. It never did.

Intriguing, but implausible and disappointing

Listened while on a long drive. I stuck with it. The vignettes within were gripping.

That said, I found myself in disbelief of the whole premise and backstory once it was finished. In the end, disappointing.

Good Voices, Unsatisfying Resolution

I was definitely drawn in by the premise of this story, but found the ending somewhat unresolved? Narration was fine, but I found myself wanting more and more as the book reached its end - could start to tell that things weren’t really going to be fully explained so I began to lose interest. That’s really my only problem with this - in all other ways it’s well written and the prose is pretty! The set up is fascinating, just wasn’t resolved in a satisfying way.

No rhyme or reason

There isn’t enough narrative explaining the bizarre behaviors practiced by the girls and women who are central to the story. It’s a very uninteresting mosh of surfacey characters and nonsensical behavior.