Review: The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco

Series: The Girl from the Well, #1
Release Date: August 5, 2014
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Format: Hardcover/e-galley
Genre: Young Adult - Horror
Source: NetGalley
Author: Website | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon | The Book Depository
Add it: Goodreads

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.

I read this book over a year ago, right when my blog pretty much stopped because I had gotten a new job. So this review is strictly going off memory. I entertained myself on my lunch break by reading this book since I didn't really know anyone there. It did a fine job and made my lunch go by way too quickly.

The Girl from the well is told from the POV of Okiku, the ghost of a young girl that was murdered and thrown down a well. She hunts murderers, specifically child killers. She has a special way of killing the men, which are very creepy. Those were definitely my favorite scenes in the book. A little back story, The Ring and The Grudge are two movies that scare the crap out of me. Those dead Japanese girls are just way to creepy. So naturally, since that is what they compared this book too, that is what I was picturing in my head the entire time. If those movies don’t scare you then you probably won’t find this book quite as creepy as I did.

The other main character in the book is Tarquin, a half Japanese tattooed boy. He doesn’t know much about his past but that his mother is dead and she tried to strangle him numerous times when he was little. He also has strange tattoos that he is constantly trying to hide. Okiku is drawn to this boy and she is unsure why. She finds herself becoming attached to him and has an almost need to protect him from the dark shadow that follows him.

Chupeco did a great job incorporating Japanese culture into the story. Her writing style really added to the creepiness of the book also. This was a fantastic debut. I believe this is just going to be a duology, which I enjoy much more than a series. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book, although I’m not sure on the direction that will go (I haven’t read the synopsis yet).

In the end, I highly recommend this book. If you are into this type of story then I believe you will really enjoy this one.  

*This book was provided by NetGalley and the author in exchange for an honest review.