I tried to read Mackintosh’s “The Water Cure” several times as it was popular in our collection, but never could get through it. Decided to try this in case it was a better fit for me, but didn’t jive with me. I’m sure some will be excited to see it in our collection, though!

I read about 20% of this before setting it aside. It just didn't hold my interest--a bit dull, a bit confusing. Flat characters.

Oh no! For a long time I didn’t give any book two stars and I didn’t get disappointed by a book but well you cannot always get what you wish for.

For celebrating empowerment of women I chose this reading for this special day and of course that beautiful, haunted, effective cover stole my heart from the first look but as soon as I flip the pages and try to get lost in this dystopian, disturbing, eerie story, I didn’t get the special and rare taste that I was looking for.

Maybe I wanted to be charmed by some special world with its authoritarian manifesto, ruled by a group of despots force the women doing choice without their free-will and consent kind of earth shattering, thought-provoking reading. Especially when I read the promotions indicate this book is some kind of smart Atwood-ish masterpiece, it made me more curious and I couldn’t wait to get this into my hands.But there are too many things failed me in this book which are:

-Lack of world-building: I got that story takes place in a dystopian alternated universe and when the girls start to menstruate, they’re taken to the hospital to be checked and join the lottery to get their card which will define their future. There are two types of future determined by two different colored tickets.

BLUE TICKET means they’re free because they’re going to mothers!! They can work and they can contribute to the system.

WHITE TICKET means they are not free anymore. They’re gonna be mothers and wives.
Well, sorry but this kind of logic didn’t make any sense of me so from the start, my head filled with tons of question marks and as you may imagine I couldn’t find any proper world-building and of course dialogue-less story-telling style and sharp endings of the chapters, lack of curiosity and mystery are the other factors I couldn’t have any connection with the story’s progression. I also didn’t give a damn about the drama of heroine’s whirlwind life story.

I think writing about powerful motherhood and having your own free will about your body and reproductive system are popular trends for strengthening the feminism manifesto and emphasizing the place the women deserve in the world by putting spotlight of their crucial problems. But I found this book’s approach to the matter and writing style lack of emotions, dull and flat.

So I designated myself a lonely place in the minority by being not big fan of this book.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday Books for sharing this ARC with me in exchange my honest review.
I wish I could enjoy it because I was so excited to read this from the beginning but unfortunately it didn’t fulfill my expectations.