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

The concept is sound - a single farm with rain in the midst of a drought, and a murder surrounded by religious zealots, angry neighbors, travelers and a marriage on the brink - but it never really went anywhere. The characters were all so sparsely drawn I couldn't get a bead on anyone. The prose was lovely but the story plodded to the point of tedium. It was a decidedly unengaging book, and took all of my effort to finish. In the end I really didn't care.

This book started out slowly, and never really picked up speed. I was confused by parts, as some things were just left hanging.

The Well might be a good story, if the plot was slightly more apparent. Halfway through the book there are still just a few dangling clues as to what happened in the past that has Rose locked up under house arrest while the world outside of her luscious, well watered farm is enduring a disastrous drought. Seems there was a murder, or not. Her daughter is a reformed, or not, addict now roaming around with a group of hippies. Her husband, a falsely accused pedophile, or not, seems to think the drought is someone else's problem. While some of the text reads well, too often it rambles down an alternate path. Too many story lines with not enough glue to make the book interesting enough to stay in The Well.

It took me almost a month to read this book, not because I had no time to read it, but I had difficulty in reading it but I don't know why. Most British books I pick to read are top-notched and easy to read, but I had trouble following the story line and I'm baffled. I guess the only explanation is that this book was not written for me.

Reading some of the provided reviews, I expected a gripping, fast moving psychological thriller. What I found was a disjointed, hard to follow story that absolutely had no credence. I found the author was trying to write for a course in her MFA rather than a story. Her words were flowery, her insight narrow, and the plot just droned on. I do believe with some good editing the story could be made more believable and thus more entertaining. Since I never not complete a book I start, I was bitterly disappointed.

I really thought I would love book: the near future, a dried up land, only but one isolated farm with a mysterious well surrounded by green fields... Only I could not like the style and the slow pace of most of the book. All in all, a deceiving book....