What do readers think of The Well by Catherine Chanter? Write your own review.

From the moment I started reading this book I felt like I was watching a movie. Some authors try so hard to create images for the reader, but in The Well, those images were effortless. Like many other readers I found this hard to put down, this has so much to do with being transported to another place.

The Well is a well-written dystopian novel which unfolds in a style reminiscent of Girl on The Train, in two sets of flashbacks, one recent and one further in the past. Set in a water-scarce England of the future, The Well focuses on Ruth, an ordinary woman who finds herself pushed to her limit by the quandary of having the only farm where rain falls in a drought-scarred land. The reader is swept up in Ruth's story and the mystery which unfolds. Book clubs will find many themes to ponder and discuss.

The Well doesn't fit into any set genre although the book jacket sums it up as a thriller. The book is also a fantasy, psychological, a book about ordinary people in unordinary circumstances. Sometimes the book is too wordy with descriptions but mostly reads very quickly especially when wanting to find the mystery of the murder. The author depicts complicated yet believable characters. All in all a very good book. Will recommend to my Book Club.

I had a hard time getting started on this book. The beginning was very wordy with the descriptions of the scenery and characters. The end of the book was fast reading. I wanted to find out what happened. Once the murderer was identified, the book became wordy again. It is a different book than I am used to reading and I am awe of that fact. I felt a love, hate, love, hate relationship with the style of the writing of the book. I would recommend this to book clubs.

I found I liked the fact that the author started us in the future and had Ruth take us through the past as she struggles to understand what occurred. I had a little trouble with Ruth's involvement with the "cult". I felt she was a stronger woman. Did this strength emerge after her experiences? I found the girls in the cult unappealing, which might have lead me to not totally accept Ruth's absorption. The author did engage me immediately in the story and I wanted to keep reading. I think it is a well-written book, but not one for everyone.

I really enjoyed this book once I decided that I could believe there could be a drought in all of the British Isles. I could understand the panic that ensued because I live in California and we are currently in the midst of a serious drought. I think this book was interesting from a number of different perspectives. First, it showed how quickly people can turn on you, secondly, demonstrated how personal relationships can be influenced by the outside world and thirdly it pointed out how we can rely on outside influences to make sense of our current problems. For me, this was a very interesting and well written novel but I do think in order to read it and get the most from it, the reader must be open something a little bit different. I belong to a book club of 8, I would highly recommend it to three, I am not sure about two but a pretty sure the other three would find the premise unbelievable. I personally, am very glad I read the book. As stated earlier, it was interesting and well written.

Isolation and destruction in the land of plenty. Leaving London to live on farm, promises of an idyllic life turns into chaos and disaster.The farm's lush greenery from the frequent over night rain while the rest of the country is experiencing a severe drought isolates the couple from the town. A mysterious religious group arrives and further divides the couple. I did not like any of the characters but despised Ruth for her poor decisions. That being said this was a good read because I was invested in the book, waiting for one of the characters to wake up and smell the fragrant roses( or at least see Amelia for who she was.

he Well is thought provoking and keeps one guessing even though after reading the first fifty pages, one can guess at the probable ending. What is less apparent is what, I feel, is the author's real intent-- the message of the dangers of believing that we are more important than what reality tells us. Listening to false affirmations and interpreting the world as we want to see it to be keeps us from reaching our full potential as members of a common humanity-- this is the real message of The Well. The author's writing style is beautiful and mesmerizing much as the world of cults that she writes about in the telling of the story.