There Should Be A Sequel!

“Memory of Water” is one of those books that I wish I could have liked more than I do. Itaranta has an excellent storytelling skill that makes this somewhat depressing novel interesting to read. She has combined the beautiful tea ceremony, which is a symbol of love and respect for Noria with the bleak picture of the future that is terrifying. She has portrayed Noria’s character in a way that the readers cannot resist liking her. Everyone including her best friend Sanja betrays Noria who cares for everyone. Noria saves Sanja’s sister’s life by revealing her father’s secret about the hidden spring. She trusts Sanja with her secret who discloses it (accidentally) to Jukara and as mentioned in the novel, “Once the silent space around a secret is shattered, it cannot be made whole again. The cracks will grow longer and wider, reaching far and branching out like an underground network of roots, until its impossible to say where it started and if it will come to an end.” Noria who decides not to go to Xinjing but prepare for her journey to the Lost Lands with Sanja gets arrested by the military just because of Sanja who takes the helicarraige with all the supplies without informing her and leaves her in a miserable situation. It would not be wrong if I will say that the character I hate the most is Sanja, even more than Commander Taro because she turned out to be selfish even with her childhood friend who did everything to save her family in days of water shortage.

Like a lot of people, I also think the ending of “Memory of Water” was disappointing. Noria died. Sanja survived. This seemed unfair to me because of all the reasons mentioned above. But I liked how Noria acted even under the hard circumstances of political repression.

One of the things I didn’t like about Itaranta’s writing is that she has dedicated a lot of passages in her book to the description of sky, water and death, which I liked in the beginning but as I read through the novel, I felt like these long descriptive passages were sort of meaningless, and they were interrupting the story over and over again.

My most favorite part of this novel is the tea ceremony and Noria’s memories with her father. At that time of my reading I kept saying in my head “Please Itaranta, don’t ruin the story” but at the end, she did it by Noria’s death and Sanja’s survival. I would love to read a sequel to this cli-fi novel just to find out what will happen to Sanja and the seven silver-colored disks.