The Well

by A. J. Whitten

Overview

If Hamlet thought he had issues, he should have talked to Cooper Warner.

His mother’s normally sunny demeanor has turned into something—homicidal.

And what’s worse, she has help in her hunt for Cooper: A ravenous monster living at the bottom of the old well in the woods behind their house. She’s determined to deliver her 14-year-old son straight into the creature’s eager clutches. Cooper turns to his girlfriend, Megan, for help, but then, to his horror, the creature takes her prisoner.
Now, it’s up to Cooper to fend off his murderous mother, finish his Hamlet paper, and enter the putrid lair at the bottom of the well to rescue Megan. And when he confronts the creature, Cooper must make the toughest decision of his life: kill, or be killed.

Inspired by Hamlet, THE WELL puts a terrifying twist on the Shakespearean classic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547232294
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/21/2009
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	695,403
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

A. J. WHITTEN is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Shirley Jump writing with her teenage daughter, Amanda. A shared love of horror movies and a desire to spice up the Shakespeare stories that are required reading in high schools led to their collaboration on The Well. They live in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Editorial Reviews

"[A] propulsive horror yarn. . . . Fright fans will be plenty satisfied with the homicidal happenings."—Booklist "Overall, this is at once frightening and a bit campy, making this a guilty—but still gratifyingly gross—pleasure for horror fans."—Bulletin —

From the Publisher

Gr 6–9—High school freshman Cooper Warner's stepfather makes his life miserable, and his English-teacher father only seems to care about how well he does on his Hamlet paper. But these problems pale in comparison with the biggest one of all: his mother is trying to kill him. At the beginning of the story, she pushes him into a slimy old well on the vineyard property owned by her new husband. As Cooper tries to escape, he begins to realize that a hideous creature is toying with him, hungry for his blood. Cooper makes it out of the well, but the creature is determined to hunt him down and force him to take its place, and it has enlisted the help of his stepfather and his seemingly possessed mother. Cooper tries to enlist his girlfriend's help, but when the creature abducts her, and then uses her and his brother as bait, Cooper realizes that he is intended to be a sacrifice for the continued fertility of the land and that he will have to confront the monster. The author claims to have been inspired by Hamlet, but the connection with Shakespeare's play is tenuous at best. The story has a few good touches, as when the creature possesses Cooper's MySpace page, but there are too many plot holes and too much is left unexplained. The adult characters are clichés, and the numerous pop culture and product references guarantee that this book will date quickly.—Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

School Library Journal