Literature

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

Book Review

Wow!  This book is claustrophobic, stunning and full of distorted truths.  It is beautifully written and even though it is based ‘somewhere else’ the imagery Mackintosh creates paints the most wonderful pictures and brings the whole place alive in your mind.

What is even more crucial to this story is the relationships between the characters.  Between siblings, between parents, between lovers, between friends, they are all complicated, raw and full of sharp observations from Mackintosh.

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The language in this story is incredible and moving.  Every word was placed with consideration, builds into the narrative as a whole and creates a feeling of unease.  Even when falling in love a character says ‘My heart swells like a broken hand to twice its size, the same sort of tenderness.’  Even love in this world has an undercurrent of potential danger.  This unease also swells throughout the story through the clever use of language.

Although Mackintosh is writing about an unknown dystopia; our own world, our treatment of each other, the taught behaviour and performative gender are all reflected back at us, offering a fascinating commentary on our own world and our own actions within it.

I can see why some people are not sure about this book, it is impossible to place and throws you straight into its dystopia with no explanation, but personally, I think it works brilliantly as it builds into the confusion that the three sisters feel.

This book will certainly be added to my favourite reads of  2018.

Read more about The Water Cure here…

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What have you been reading recently?  Let me know and let’s have a chat about it in the comments.  I’m always on the lookout for new great reads!

Happy Reading!

Nicola x

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Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for sending me a Kindle edition of The Water Cure in exchange for an honest review.

 

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Creative Writing, Poetry

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Stars don’t die quietly

they scream light into the blazing sky

with Ares’ sword pointed towards themselves

 

spitting and burning the

truth

they splatter blinding supernovas

into the black padding of the night

 

dying stars don’t wink at the moon but take

pride in their indifference to

Death

and their

Love of the withering

light that burns them up from the inside

constellations of dust and

dents that hold the everlasting dark

 

until they do no more and

_

 

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Connected by Nicola Bourne

Creative Writing

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They say when someone dies that they leave a hole in your heart but I don’t think that’s true.

Instead, they add something to your heart.  It has the shape and weight of a large boulder and its forever in the way.  It makes it hard for your heart to keep working.  Hard to breathe.  I tried explaining that to a woman at work and she told me about someone her friend knew who had a tumour inside their heart the size of a pea.  I think she thought that would help.  Empathizing by sharing a parallel story.  They did both involve hearts.  Maybe the emphasis was lost over text message.

That is why I bought him online.

Read the rest…

Published on www.50GS.com, 14th March 2018

What Do You Wish You Had Done?

Any Human Heart, Cancer & Me, Writing & Blogging

I knew my surgery for cancer was going to be extreme and dangerous and I was genuinely worried I was going to die.  I bought one of those – this is my life books to fill in so my children (who were only 2-years and 11-months at the time of my surgery) would have some of my memories should my worst fear be realised.

One of the questions was ‘what do you wish you had done?’  Quite poignant at the time, I was only 32, thinking about things I wasn’t going to get to experience was not easy, but there were three things I wished that I had done;

Gone to University to read Literature and Writing.

Travelled more.

Become an author.

It can be a strange time after cancer because everything is exactly the same, yet everything has changed.  Most women I have spoken to go through big internal changes after getting the all clear.  I have described it to people as being like a ‘shedding of the skin.’  You want to peel away the past, shake off anything that is pre-all-clear.  Obviously you don’t want to shed everything.  There were plenty of things that were lovely about my life before cancer and after… but how do you marry those two things up?

It has become a bit of a cliché that feeling that you have cancer and suddenly realise what and where you want your life to be, but I think it is a cliché for a reason.   You will never have your life put so acutely into perspective, than when you have a full on face off with your mortality.

For me, moving forwards after cancer, I knew that Purchase The Fabulous Woman's Guide Through Cancer on Kindle or in Paperback here!I did not want to answer the same question in the same way when I was 80!

So I applied to University (which I started part-time in 2013) and agreed with my husband we would try to visit more places.  I knew I wanted to help others who are affected by cancer, which led me to start my blog and fulfil an ambition of becoming an author by writing my first non-fiction book, The Fabulous Woman’s Guide Through Cancer.

I often joke that most people realise they want to spend more time with their family, where as I decided I wanted to spend less time at home, but you know, whatever works!

What about you?  Any changes for any reason?  Let me know x

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I genuinely love to hear from you so come and say hi! Nx