Review - The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco

 

 

Title: The Girl From the Well (Book #1)

Author: Rin Chupeco

Teaser: “She will rise from the depths and seek vengeance.”

Genre:  YA Paranormal Horror

Number of pages: 267

Released: August 5th, 2014 by Sourcebooks Fire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Description:

You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret - one that would just kill to get out.

The Girl from the Well is a YA Horror novel pitched as "Dexter" meets "The Grudge", based on a well-loved Japanese story.

Positives:

-The prose.  Hauntingly beautiful.  Creative and intimate.  Lush and intricate.  I will read everything this author releases, just for her delicate, thoughtful writing.

-The characters.  The main character, the ghost, is expertly “shown” to the reader.  What I mean by this is that the author doesn’t have to have the character outright say “this is who I am and what I’m like”.  The author shows this by even little things the character does or reacts.

-The retelling.  This story takes the poorly developed written story in the movie The Ring.  Sure, even I loved that movie because I thought it was so scary.  But this book takes that story and brings life, story, history, plot, and tear-jerking reality to it.

 

Negatives:

-The length.  Only because I would have wanted to read MORE. 

 

Overview:

I am not one for YA Horror.  Personally, I thought they wouldn’t be scary enough, would be cheesy, or would be poorly written in an irritating way.  This book has some –very- scary parts that almost made me think… “If this was a movie it would NOT be for kids.”  The best part of the book for me though was that she took Horror and made it scary AND beautiful.  How does one do that?  I don’t even know.

The plot was perfect for me.  I could see a certain few people thinking it is ‘slow’ or not dramatic enough, but I don’t think they are truly appreciating the book then.  The story flows like water that is just quiet enough you can barely hear it in the dark of night.  It elevates and then descends to where you can feel the emotions and the spaces.  The story develops where I was emotionally attached to the boy, but to the ghost girl in an even more strong way.  I can’t wait to see more of her.

I cannot speak enough about how much I loved the ghost character.  She was written perfectly.  She actually doesn’t say much in the book, but you feel her so easily.  Instead of having a lot of dialogue with the other characters of the book, you feel as if she is having dialogue directly with you.

Overall, this book is amazing.  Changed my mind about YA Horror and made me fall in love with the author.  This is a beautiful work that took a played out story from the movies and retold it with a history and background that I can’t wait to explore more.

 

Rating: 

 

 

Recommended to:

-Everyone.

Not Recommended to:

-….No one.