The Girl from the Well

I almost liked this book. Okiku's narrative voice (the titular girl from the well) is distinctive and persuasive, Chupeco does some weird yet effective things with POV that I really enjoyed, and I mostly dug the plot. It's also creepy without being too scary, which I very much appreciated.

There are major problems with the other characters and with the dialogue, though, which drag the book down. Several of the non-adult characters act too young for their age while talking too old for it; dialogue is primarily used to forward the plot even as it tramples on the characterizations (the worst example is when a quiet, sullen teenager abruptly unloads several paragraphs of backstory on his new therapist); and most of the characters' voices are so similar as to be indistinguishable.

It's a quick enough read that I felt mostly able to concentrate on the good parts and ignore the rest, but even so the overall effect was mediocre at best.