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A review by bookshelfjpg
The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
3.0
Actual Rating: 3.5/5
Let's start with this: personally, The Water Cure was not a super easy book to read. My attention drifted sometimes, I went into it with high expectations from the "Handmaid's Tale meets The Virgin Suicides!!" tagline slapped on it, and I was already confused by the large variety of mixed reviews I had seen on it. But heck, I actually really ended up enjoying it in the end despite some things.
I'm unsure if "Feminist Dystopian Novel" is a great way to describe this one. I feel as if it toes the line of all those genres, however it's fairly on it's own for what it is. I don't really know how else to describe it, so let's get into just my pros and cons.
PROS - interesting story line that had a good amount of promise to it to keep the story alive, interesting characters that held unique but memorable qualities, visually appealing (i'm a sucker for this book cover), BUT the overall pro, it was written beautifully. Sophie Mackintosh's writing is awesome in this. It's unique and eloquent while still adding little bits of terror without making it seem dark. I had to re-read a couple parts because the events occurring were things of horror but they were written so effortlessly and polished that it helped the book keep it's odd, dream-like composure.
CONS - I'm not sure I loved the format of this. It bounced from sister to sister narratives in the beginning, stuck with Lia in the middle, and then bounced back to Grace towards the end. Their narratives sounded the same which was mildly confusing. The ending came with very little closure and left me wondering what this world they avoided forever was really like (which I also see the benefit of ending it like that - I'm just impatient and curious), the middle took me a bit to get into it - I just felt like the "days" kept dragging on with little change, and the Mother and King narrative was decently predictable but also not really wrapped up towards the end.
All in all, this was an okay book in my opinion. It's hard to classify what genre it is because it sways between wanting to be in a dystopian universe while wanting to reach the standard of a feminist story-line. And it was okay. I'm glad I read it and stepped outside of my box on this one.
Let's start with this: personally, The Water Cure was not a super easy book to read. My attention drifted sometimes, I went into it with high expectations from the "Handmaid's Tale meets The Virgin Suicides!!" tagline slapped on it, and I was already confused by the large variety of mixed reviews I had seen on it. But heck, I actually really ended up enjoying it in the end despite some things.
I'm unsure if "Feminist Dystopian Novel" is a great way to describe this one. I feel as if it toes the line of all those genres, however it's fairly on it's own for what it is. I don't really know how else to describe it, so let's get into just my pros and cons.
PROS - interesting story line that had a good amount of promise to it to keep the story alive, interesting characters that held unique but memorable qualities, visually appealing (i'm a sucker for this book cover), BUT the overall pro, it was written beautifully. Sophie Mackintosh's writing is awesome in this. It's unique and eloquent while still adding little bits of terror without making it seem dark. I had to re-read a couple parts because the events occurring were things of horror but they were written so effortlessly and polished that it helped the book keep it's odd, dream-like composure.
CONS - I'm not sure I loved the format of this. It bounced from sister to sister narratives in the beginning, stuck with Lia in the middle, and then bounced back to Grace towards the end. Their narratives sounded the same which was mildly confusing. The ending came with very little closure and left me wondering what this world they avoided forever was really like (which I also see the benefit of ending it like that - I'm just impatient and curious), the middle took me a bit to get into it - I just felt like the "days" kept dragging on with little change, and the Mother and King narrative was decently predictable but also not really wrapped up towards the end.
All in all, this was an okay book in my opinion. It's hard to classify what genre it is because it sways between wanting to be in a dystopian universe while wanting to reach the standard of a feminist story-line. And it was okay. I'm glad I read it and stepped outside of my box on this one.