The Girl in the Well Is Me

Rivers (Finding Ruby Starling) adheres to the advice that fiction writers "give their characters trouble" in this psychological horror story. Over a day and night trapped in a well, Kammie Summers, 11, recounts a horrific year. After her father's incarceration for a heinous crime, a beloved relative dies of cancer, and a bus kills the family dog outside their New Jersey home (which the bank is repossessing). The Summers relocate to "Nowheresville," Texas, exchanging a life of plasma-screen TVs and horseback-riding lessons for a trailer where Kammie shares a bedroom with a brother who doesn't like her anymore. Asthmatic Kammie doles out the details of her downward mobility while the mean girls who tricked her into falling into the well look down and laugh. Rivers writes intense scenes of hallucinatory prose as the sky darkens, and oxygen deprivation causes Kammie to imagine dead goats beneath her feet, spiders attacking her legs, and the company of a French-speaking coyote. The stream-of-consciousness narration recalls Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," but claustrophobics will probably want to read something else. Ages 10-13. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Gr 4-6--Kammie Summers is wedged partway down a well shaft, unable to move her arms and possibly running low on oxygen. In a funny, surreal, occasionally heartbreaking stream-of-consciousness narrative, Kammie ponders the clique of girls whose mean-spirited initiation ritual caused her fall down the well and who don't feel as much urgency about her rescue as Kammie (and readers) might hope. She contemplates her mother, frazzled from working two jobs; her father, in prison for embezzling money from a children's charity; and the fallout from her dad's terrible decisions, including their move to the backwater town where her attempts to make friends led to this catastrophe. Kammie's spiky but sympathetic narration yields a compulsively readable story, traveling swiftly from friendship woes to sibling conflict to conversations with the silver Francophone coyote she hallucinates as the oxygen situation deteriorates. Rivers provides Kammie--along with the coyote and some unfriendly zombie goats--authentic feelings of guilt, anger, loneliness, and self-pity about her circumstances in and out of the immediate danger of the well. Though the book confronts both the specter of death and the reality of parental betrayal, Rivers has a middle grade audience in mind; the tangential meandering keeps the pacing snappy, and Kammie emerges from the well reasonably intact. The narrative falters at the very end as uplifting resolutions come too easily, but middle grade readers likely won't mind the rosy lens. VERDICT An unusual story with uncommonly truthful emotions.--Robbin E. Friedman, Chappaqua Library, NY

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

A Top 10 Spring 2016 Kids' Indie Next Pick

"Darkly humorous . . . honest and forthcoming . . . [Kammie's] reflections in the heart of darkness (both literally and figuratively) are where the story hits its stride . . . It's in the quiet moments when Kammie is along with her thoughts—which become surreal hallucinations—that the book comes alive . . . original and truthful."—New York Times Book Review

"A brilliantly revealed, sometimes even funny, exploration of courage, the will to live, and the importance of being true to oneself. The catastrophe draws readers in, and the universality of spunky Kammie's life-affirming journey will engage a wide audience. Moving, suspenseful, and impossible to put down."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"The inimitable voice of 11-year-old Kammie Summers is not one you will soon forget—in turns wise, sad, hopeful, frightened, hilarious. Rivers does a masterful job..."—Buffalo News

"A hypnotic, utterly original novel . . . Guilt and forgiveness, truth and lies, family and self, friendship and social hierarchy—The Girl in the Well Is Me doesn't so much tackle these subjects as absorb them into its natural fiber. Young readers will take in tough-and-tender Kammie as their own . . . and the suspense and anxiety of her situation will leave every reader breathless until the final page."—Shelf Awareness

"I dare you to pick up this riveting novel without reading straight through to its heart-stopping conclusion. Karen Rivers has penned a dazzling voice, at once hilarious, heartbreaking, and searingly honest. The Girl in the Well Is Me is a triumph."—Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal-winning author of The One and Only Ivan

"A gripping story that doesn't shy away from the dark places but explores them with heart, humor, and light."—Kate Messner, author of All The Answers

"Funny, surreal, occasionally heartbreaking...a compulsively readable story." —School Library Journal

"The danger will grab readers quickly, and their inevitable investment in Kammie will keep them breathlessly engaged through to the conclusion, perhaps even in one sitting if they can get away with it."—The Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books

"This is a fascinatingly well told story that strongly reminded me of Libba Bray's Going Bovine, but with a completely believable middle grade flavor."—Teen Librarian Toolbox / School Library Journal

"Superb . . . acrobatic . . . Karen Rivers is able to dive so seamlessly into the darker themes of growing up . . . Because of the tone and persistence of [protagonist] Kammie, the reader never loses faith that, although times may seem impossibly tough, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel."—Cleaver Magazine

"It should strike a chord with its tween audience."—Booklist

"Interesting and well-written." —San Francisco Book Review