Name: The Girl from the Well
ISBN: 9781492608684

Rin Chupeco

The Ring meets The Exorcist in this haunting story about an American boy whose last hope for protection lies with a vengeful ghost Okiku wants vengeance...and she gets it. Whenever there's a monster hurting a child--the same way she was hurt 300 years ago in Japan--her spirit is there to deliver punishment. But one American boy draws her like no other. The two are pulled into a world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from the American Midwest to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan. The boy is not a monster, but something evil writhes beneath his skin, trapped by a series of intricate tattoos. Can Okiku protect him? Or is her presence only bringing more harm?

The Girl from the Well

Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the innocent ghosts of the murdered-dead and taking the lives of killers with the vengeance they are due, but when she meets Tark she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.

Loved this multi-perspective piece on japanese ghosts and spirits and curses.

Just a bummer that the person doing the audiobook narration couldn’t get even one of Japanese words right in tone, influx, and pronunciation…..

Rabia Sitabi

Loved this multi-perspective piece on japanese ghosts and spirits and curses.

Just a bummer that the person doing the audiobook narration couldn’t get even one of Japanese words right in tone, influx, and pronunciation…..

But liked the story a lot regardless!

Patrick Book

Kind of a combination ghost story and textbook. But better than that sounds?

Brandy

Rin Chupeco is spectacular in her writing and horrific details. Bloody and terrifying, this is a very good story for fans of legends and horror.

Charlie Winchester 

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.

C. J. Daley 

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.

Delaney Woods 

i think my actual rating is probably 3.5. i listened to the audio book of this and genuinely couldn’t listen while i was home alone cuz it scared me. it was fun and spooky. perfect for halloween time

Holly

Steysha

Ugh, I`m not in a mood for a proper review right now, so let`s just say it was good, creepy, but not phantastic. And I`m still going to read the sequel. Someday.

Kaitee Tredway

I picked this up as part of the Bookriot Read harder 2020 challenge. I loved it.

mary

I am where dead children go. Okiku is a lonely soul. She has wandered the world for centuries, freeing the spirits of the murdered-dead. Once a victim herself, she now takes the lives of killers with the vengeance they're due. But releasing innocent ghosts from their ethereal tethers does not bring Okiku peace. Still she drifts on. Such is her existence, until she meets Tark. Evil writhes beneath the moody teen's skin, trapped by a series of intricate tattoos. While his neighbors fear him, Okiku knows the boy is not a monster. Tark needs to be freed from the malevolence that clings to him. There's just one problem: if the demon dies, so does its host.

Girl from the Well

3.5 stars

Pretty entertaining take on the legend of Okiku (or Banchō Sarayashiki). The plot was really interesting and the folklore was fairly easy to follow, despite my not having any background on the legend aside from the elements that appear in The Ring. I definitely love the concept of a vengeful spirit who kills pedophiles and murderers!

Some of the writing got a bit tedious though; the use of line breaks in the middle of sentences especially was annoying. It can be effective sometimes, but I feel like it was overused in this book.

Overall, it had a decent tone and mood, though it wasn't terribly scary. The writing is obviously for a bit of a younger audience, despite its grim subject matter.

Jessica Williamson

4.25

This was soooo good.

Perfectly spooky and creepy. I loved the POV. It was done SO dang well. It added so much more creep and depth to the story. 

The ending was fan-fucking-tastic. The way things ended, the absolute creep. I really had a great time reading this one. 

cover 4; characters 4; plot 4; pace 4; writing 5; enjoyment 5.

Viry

“I am the fate that people fear to become.”

Insiya Ghadiali

This book would make a great horror movie, but I wasn't much scared reading it. Except for at the beginning. This story is told from the point of view of the ghost that is good?
She doesn't just murder anyone only people who have murdered children.
I like Tark and Callie and their relationship.
All in all this was an average story for me.

Jessica Krcmarik

kinda seems like the author watched the Ring and a couple episodes of Code Geass and went

ah, yes

this is enough research on Japan, nailed it

Kelsey Holtaway

#fortnightfrights “book by an Asian author”

3.5ish rounded up. Enjoyed the premise and concepts of this book, and ultimately where it ended up but i struggled with the perspective, and it took me out of the story.

Lacey

This book had me at creepy dolls and exorcism.

Becca Futrell

I enjoyed some of the creepy elements of this book, but for the most part I was bored :|

Christina Baltimore 

I read the first three chapters of this book for free after reading some reviews that complained about the writing style. After the first three chapters I decided to purchase the book on my Kindle. 

This book falls under the young adult horror genre. I liked this book more than I thought I would. I was never a fan of the movie The Ring but the underlying story is interesting. The entire book was creepy and it was a great story. 

The characters were easily likable. Okiku was a very creepy character but was my favorite character. Tarquin was a bit of a mystery at first but I grew to like his character also. His character is a troubled by a darkness and Okiku can see that darkness and finds herself wanting to help him. By the end of the book i was hopeful for both of them even though the creep factor was never completely resolved. It was an "there are only 2 options and I don't mind living with this one" ending. 

I fully intend to read this book again. I would also read other books by Chupeco.

Jessica Nottingham

The Girl From The Well started out phenomenally. As promised, Okiku's story was dark, full of vengeance, and yet oddly beautiful. I was caught up in the afterlife of a spirit who wasn't able to move on. One who filled her ceaseless existence with revenge, blood, and the small spark of warmth that came from delivering a violent, yet fitting death. Had this book been simply about Okiku, I could have read for ages. I understood this troubled girl. I took pleasure in watching her captors squirm. She and I? We were connected. Then Tark entered the picture.
 
In all fairness, I was too enamored with the cover of this book to really pay attention to the synopsis. I had no idea that Tark's story was actually the main focus of this book. Or that Okiku's dark existence would soon be set on the back burner. At first, I didn't mind so much. Tark, a boy with mysterious tattoos that writhed on his body, was an interesting character. I felt like his story was somehow connected to Okiku's. That he'd soon be caught up in the blackness that surrounded her. Alas, this wasn't to be. While I loved the first third of the book with all my twisted little heart, it started to go downhill from there.
 
I think one of the biggest issues I had with The Girl From the Well was the writing style. The flowery, descriptive, writing held up well against the backdrop of Okiku's story. She was an old ghost, and I felt like it complimented her character. Once Tark's story line came into play, that same writing style started to feel disjointed. See, one of things that sets Okiku apart is the way that she counts things. Cars, buses, people, plants. It ties in well to her story, which I won't spoil for you. She also has a habit of interjecting violent outbursts in between thoughts. While I was following only her, I didn't mind these quirks. Once there were multiple points of view? It just felt jumbled, and messy.
 
I should stop here to let you know that I desperately hope someone fixed this narrative for the finished version of the book. I was under the impression that, despite being ARCs, most early copies are still somewhat edited. Sure, I've seen a few misspelled words before. Maybe even a small amount of issues with tense. This ARC had so many instances of incorrect tense that I was horribly distracted. Towards the end, I was more involved in fixing the problems, while reading, than actually enjoying the story.
 
Which brings me to the ending, which I still won't spoil, and how unfulfilled I felt. As I mentioned before, I loved Okiku's story. I loved her character, her motivations, and the gory endings her victims met. I didn't mind Tark, or his story, but it never really felt fleshed out. Once he took center stage, nothing ever felt complete. I had no strong feelings for any characters. No deep need to keep reading on. I was disappointed, and sad. For the enjoyment that I was originally given, and for the Japanese mythology I fell in love with, I'll offer up three stars to this book. I wanted more from The Girl From The Well. I really did.

The Girl from the Well

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