The Water Cure

Written by: Sophie Mackintosh

First line: Once we had a father, but our father dies without us noticing.

Why you should read this book: Three sisters live with their mother and father on an isolated island, where, their parents promise them, they will be protected from the toxic influence of men that pervades the mainland, provided they participate in numerous healing rituals that read like old-school torture. When their father disappears without warning and three strangers—two men and a boy—appear on their shore their belief in their own beloved mythology is sorely tested. A dreamy, mythic story with multiple narrators who are unreliable not because they seek to deceive the reader or themselves, but because they have only a limited database from which to draw their understanding of reality.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Not the kind of story where everything is explained in the end.