The Girl from the Well
2014 • 267 pages

Ratings24

Average rating3.9

15

This was included with audible, so my fiancée and I gave it a go on a long drive. 
With influences taken from the same Japanese folklore as the Ring, I was interested in this one from the start. I was nervous with it being YA, but the start was rather gruesome, so I thought it might work. 
As a vengeful spirit, she only attacks those that get away with harming children. Her judgment and execution is swift and gruesome. So why is she hanging, or haunting, around a teenage boy? 
I did not dislike this, but I did find myself feeling like there was simply too much going on. It focused on the boy and his cousin, partially on his mother and father, as well as a having a large part take place in Japan, dealing with a group of women that gave their lives to exorcising demons. Yet somehow, the book was actually about the spirit Okiku. It just read as very clunky. 
One thing that definitely did not work for me was dialogue. The boy is fifteen and his cousin is an eighteen year old teacher's assistant (which I was always under the impression you needed college classes done to do...) but they talk like they are thirty years old. 
Personally a 3/5* but I don't think I'll pick up the second. 

July 27, 2023Report this review