3/5 stars There is an island somewhere in the world, the only safe place as they call it. Because the outside world is dangerous and contaminated. It’s better for you to stay on this island, because here you can breathe in the only fresh air that is left, or so they tell you. There once was someone named King who ruled this island. With his wife and his three daughters he looks after the broken women who wash up on the shore. King is the only one who can safe them from those dangerous men and the dangerous outside world. The women do not wash up on the shore anymore, so the life on the island is isolated and lonely. Someday, King disappears and the power shifts. Mother is in charge, and she is cruel. Then, three men wash up on the shore and power shifts again. This is the basic premise of this book and for me, it did not get deeper than that. There is really a reason why the synopsis is so cryptic: There is nothing more to say. In my opinion, this does not make the book a bad book, especially since it is written so beautifully, somewhat in a stream of consciousness fashion, dreamy and pleasantly sometimes. There are plot points happening, the characters grow and change, but it still did not keep me engaged all the way. Sometimes I just didn’t care about the things that happen because no one ever got down to the point of it. I was left with a feeling that something is not quite right but also knowing that something is not quite wrong. I really enjoyed the setting of the book though. It felt like an old, abandoned Hotel that was taken over by a cult once, but the cult is dwindling rapidly. The author did capture that feeling in her beautiful prose. But this leaves me wondering, if this novel is more a ‘visual’ novel and therefore would work better (for me) as a movie. There is so much imagery going on that it almost feels cinematographically. I would be really interested in a book to screen adaption, though I doubt that this will ever happen. I think three stars is a good rating for this book. I did enjoy parts of it, and I did cherish the writing style, but I missed that certain something for most of the time. The story lost me sometimes. I do understand why this was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but my personal dystopian feminism triad of Atwood, Alderman and Zumas will stay that way.