THE GIRL FROM THE WELL BY RIN CHUPECO

Genre: YA, Horror

Source: Netgalley (in return for a honest review)

“I am beginning to understand that there are better things than retribution.”
― Rin Chupeco, The Girl from the Well

 Synopsis: 
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.

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* I would like to thank Netgalley and Rin Chupeco for the opportunity to read and review this*

This is based on Japanese folklore so if you are into Japanese Horror films this is for you! It reminds me of The Grudge meets The Ring meets Shutter. I received a digital copy of this title from the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest review. This book is set to be released on August 5th 2014.

The Girl From The Well is narrated by a vengeful ghost named Okiku who hunts and murders children killers. This book tells the story of Okiku and the boy with tattoos she is drawn to, Tarquin. From the streets of America to the country side in Japan, ghosts, death and exorcisms haunt the pages of this book. I loved the personality of Tarquin that Chupeco created. He was so witty and sarcastic, exactly what you would expect from a teenage boy. It is filled with creepy elements and the way some scenes are described definitely gave me the chills. Living with a cat that loves to stare at the ceiling and reading this at night did not help that fact.

Rin Chupeco has an interesting way of writing, but some times it became really awkward for me and made it hard to follow along. It felt more like a screen play than a novel at times. The last third of the book actually flowed and was good, following a more structured style. Another thing that I noticed (and maybe it was just me)was that it never exactly states what ethnicity the characters of Callie and Tarquin are, I found this to be a little annoying and although you can kind of infer the answer.  I did feel like the background and research that Chupeco did for this book showed through (although I don’t know much about Japanese folklore it seemed to match up with other films/stories I have heard). Overall I was let down and was expecting so much more from this book than I received.