crothe77 's review for:

The Deep Well by Laura Creedle
mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
 
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

The Deep Well by Laura Creedle is a third person-POV YA horror. At five-years-old, April biked down to see her dad at the mine he worked at. That same day, nineteen people were dead, including him, the owner disappeared, and because April mentioned hearing a voice, she became known as The Bicycle Girl, summoner of demons and bringer of the apocalypse. Even April isn’t sure what will happen on the day she turns seventeen. When her aunt gives her a stack of documents about the mine and the people there, April starts to research every clue she can to find out what happened and what part she plays in all this.

This is such a unique and interesting take on the creepy child trope. I can genuinely say that I have never read something quite like this where the lead doesn’t even know for sure themselves if they are responsible for what happened and if there was a portal or not. To top it all, she has to evade cultists who are obsessed with her, an ex-friend who doxed her family, and live with the legacy of a horror movie inspired by what happened that made her out to be directly responsible who’s delighted by murder. 

Like a lot of horror these days, the story both provides non-supernatural answers while also leaving a question mark that something supernatural is indeed going on. I have my own theory for what might have been the cause of all the deaths that would explain pretty much everything, but I have no confirmation for certain details that would tell me if I’m right or wrong. I don’t have an issue with this because this does feel like a fairly standard aspect of the genre, at least in YA, and that bit of mystery helps to keep the chills going.

April has a lot of very complicated relationships within the story. Her younger sister Jules never got to meet their father as she hadn’t been born yet and she’s never really known a life without people being obsessed with April or afraid of her. Their mother is chronically ill and never remarried and is somewhat distant from April, though it appears to be neither of their faults. On top of that, April has a budding romance with her childhood friend Zach but he’ll also need to deal with the fact that she is Bicycle Girl as long as they are together. The people closest to April, such as her friend Grace, do treat her as a person and not a freak, but in those instances, April treats herself like a freak. It’s heartbreaking to see how she pushes people away even though she so clearly misses being close to people.

I would recommend this to fans of YA horror who want to wonder if the events are supernatural or not and readers of horror who want a twist on the creepy child trope