The Water Cure: A Novel
"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.
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.
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Community Reviews
I
This story is a metaphor for... something. The inherent violence we all harbor inside us? The idea that relations between men and women can never be peaceful? I honestly don't know. The writing is lovely, lyrical and haunting but too veiled for me. Are men really a threat to women in the outside world, or is the sickness a metaphor? Or is it just that Grace, Lia, and Sky's parents are incredibly manipulative and abusive (physicallyand psychologically)? Although some things become clear(er) by the end of the book, much is left in obscurity.
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