The Girl from the Well

The legend of Okiku is one of the most famous stories in Japanese folklore and has seen a massive resurgence in the past few decades with films like Ringu and Ju-On: The Grudge. This year we even have the film Sadako v Kayako, where the two Okiku inspired villians battle head to head. Rin Chupeco gives us new depth into Okiku's story, showing us more humanity then we are used to.

While many YA novels transcend the genre this wasn't one of them. Better written then your average R.L. Stine book but I'd say they were on par for the amount of chills it gave me. Even though it read as soft horror for me, I'm sure it would be terrifying for an actual tween just getting into the horror genre. Also recommend to die hard Ringu/Ju-On fans or horror softies who can't handle real terrors. 2.5/5

Maybe it is because I am not a Young Adult (I am in my 30's) but I was expecting a more creepy/scary book. Since the book is considered to be a mix of The Ring and The Grudge (both scared me) I figure this would be a great horror book to read. Even though the book didn't scare me, I did somewhat enjoy this book. If you love books like I do, you have books you keep and read over and over and others you get rid of, for me, this is a book I will be getting rid of since I don't plan to ever read it again. Fun quick read at the pool, but save your money and borrow it from your local library.

Read on May 20, 2015

I would like to thank Netgalley and Sourcebooks for having this book available to read now.

The Grudge meets, The Ring, meets an awesome book! This book is creepy but in a good way. I loved it!

The girl from the well is named Okiku and she was killed years ago. Her ghost stayed around to kill people that murder children. She's really creepy at first, well she's creepy all along, but she's good! She certainly does some creepy things and makes some creepy noises. I would love to see this as a movie!!

She meets a boy named Tark on one of her watches. She is keeping an eye on her next man to take out that has killed many kids. This man is also watching Tark. The murderers she picks kills all different ages of children. Tark is fifteen so he's a little older. Okiku notices something different about Tark, there seems to be a dark entity surrounding him.

So Tark and his dad just moved into the neighborhood. They move around because things seem to happen where ever Tark ends up. Tarks cousin Callie is a teachers aide at the new school he is enrolled in and she's really cool.

There seems to be a lot of children and people in the book that can see ghosts. I just thought I would mention that, some of the people and kids are a little freaky!

Tarks mom is in a mental institution but she's not really crazy. Just that kind of crazy where you can see evil spirits and every one else thinks your a nut ball!

Anyway, all kinds of bad things go down and Tark, his dad and Callie have to travel to Japan to take care of some business. I'm not giving away any spoilers. I so wish I could :)

All I know is this book is creepy and Okiku, although creepy as all get out, is a really good spirit. I look forward to reading more about her!

MY REVIEWS:
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/989281696

Thoughts: The Girl from the Well follows Okiku, a vengeful spirit who destroys child abusers and killers, Tark, a teenager haunted by a malevolent demon, and Callie, Tark’s older cousin who needs to know the truth about the supernatural.

I found Okiku to be the most interesting character in the entire book because she was a spirit who was unable to leave the mortal plane. This was caused by her need to enact vengeance and pain on those who use, abuse, torture, and murder children/teenagers. We all know she is not doing it to help the murdered souls, as she would wait until after the killer took another life most times, and although Tark’s presence caused her to make more of an effort, she really was only doing her it for herself and her need for vengeance. At the same time, this took away from Tark and Callie whose lives are being the most affected by the malevolent spirit haunting Tark, and I wish they had both been a little more fleshed out as characters, but the novel definitely made up for it with the intense scenes, experimental writing, vivid images painted, and the feeling of horror, dread, and suspense that sat in my stomach while reading.

Reviewed under RosesandSundragons16 @ Amazon, Goodreads, Instagram, NetGalley, and StoryGraph.

the whole story overall is revetting

I bought this to take on a flight and couldn't put it down. I'm not into Japanese mythology, but it was cool to learn more about it through this story. It was spooky but not in a way that gave me nightmares - the perfect amount of scared. Can't wait to read more from this author!

Product as described

Loved this book. Interesting plot with some twists. I have read other books from this author and enjoyed them so this one was no surprise.

Favorite author

3.5 crowns

This wasn't quite the horror story that I wanted, but it was pretty close. Basically, if there was ever a YA horror movie that was being made, I would 200% push forward this one, because I think it was easily one of the best books I could visualize and could see being a horror movie so well. 

You know how my usual reviews just ramble on for ages and ages with paragraphs getting progressively larger? Well, I'm trying something new, since I read this audiobook a few days ago and while I was at work, so I'm not sure I am in the best mind frame to write my classic and probably very unneeded large paragraphs. Be prepared for, like, some very large bullet points.

Let's discuss some pros:
- The cultural aspects. I don't think I've ever read a ghostie book that blended the culture as well as this one. You learn more about the supernatural Japanese culture as well as regular Japanese culture in this book, and I loved everything about it. I'm totally obsessed with everything folklore - especially of the paranormal variety - and this was IT.
- It has some great horror moments. I mean, there was nothing really jump scares or anything that made me afraid to go to bed at night or anything, but I really felt like it was YA horror with some gore and moments that could have been frightening that was what I needed from the book.
- The book is told from a kind of third person POV. The story is told from the ghost, Okiku, and at first, it felt very detached, but I think it kind of worked to bring a more general creepiness to the story. I felt it worked well. 
- I liked the characters for the most part. I think Callie, Tark, and Okiku were all interesting and complex in their own right. I really liked them, and I felt like they were a fantastic cast to make it through this story. Also, they didn't do crazy things just for the sake of being in a horror movie. I never had to shout, NO, DON'T GO IN THERE. WHY ARE YOU GOING IN THERE???
- The pacing was good, and I thought interesting twists and turns made it an intriguing story that went by pretty well.

And let's discuss some cons:
- Format. As I said, I read this as an audiobook, and I'm not sure how it translated the format super well. There is a thing about counting in this book that I think was supposed to make it creepy and scary, but it was quite jarring in the audiobook. There would be some prose happening and then all of a sudden 8! or 4! and I'm like, wait, what? I'm not sure how it was in the actual book, though, and I'm not sure I would have been a fan in there. 
- I, um, was never really scared.
- There was still some quite detachment with the narrator.
- While I liked the characters, I never really loved any of them.
- The ending got a little wobbly for me, and I kind of checked out at the end when the whole battle royale was going down and such. 

Overall, this was a pretty solid read. It honestly went up in my mind the more that I talked about it, and I think it might be something to add to your TBRs for sure if you're looking for the spooky reading months coming up! It was an intriguing and thrilling, but it never got scary. It does have some horror/gory moments, though, but it really fit with your basic horror movie. It did bring some amazing moments with the Japanese folklore included. 3.5 crowns and a Jasmine rating.

Also, never doing bullet points again. It was too weird for me, I failed, and I can't deal.