Review: The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

Title: The Girl from the Well
Author: Rin Chupeco
Series: The Girl from the Well #1
Publication: May 1st 2015 by Sourcebooks Fire
Genre: Young Adult ~ Horror
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Rating: 4/5

  

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 ghost story.

Starting The Girl from the Well  I was a little on the fence about it because when it comes to Japanese horror stories I'm a total wuss. Really. The movie The Ring scared the crap out of me. And there were some seriously creepy parts in the book but I ended up really liking the story, especially the author's writing style.

This was really a unique story, in my opinion, because it was told from the point of view of Okiku, a centuries' old spirit that hunts down child murderers and unleashes her wrath on them. One day she comes across Tarquin a.k.a. Tark, a fifteen-year-old boy who's covered in strange tattoos. The more she follows—and ultimately communicates with—him, the more she learns about the dark side within him. 

The story eventually takes us to Japan, which I had been waiting for. This probably was my favorite part of the book because we finally started getting more answers. I loved that Okiku was the narrator because you got to see all the characters through her eyes. She was terrifying but I couldn't help but care about her.

I really liked all the side characters too. Tark was kind of a smartass but in a cute way. I was pretty horrified what his mother had done to him, even if it was to contain this menacing spirit but he still managed to be a pretty great person in spite of that. 

Then there was his cousin Callie who kind of got sucked into it all unwillingly. I may not have always liked her completely but I did admire how she didn't run away from it all. Tark's father was a bit clueless but all in all that wasn't a major point for me. 

Overall, The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco was great. Usually I'm not a fan of horror stories but this one really captivated me. It was a little bit scary at times, of course, and I wouldn't recommend reading this at night, but it was the best kind of creepy I could've asked for. 

       About the Author:

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Despite an unsettling resemblance to Japanese revenants, Rin always maintains her sense of hummus. Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, she keeps four pets: a dog, two birds, and a husband.

She is represented by Rebecca Podos of the Helen Rees Agency.