My sodding goodreads replacement (maybe)

What a sad little story. Not the tear-jerking kind of sad, but that uncomfortable, needling kind of sad that I can sense is going to cast a kind of melancholic gloom over the rest of my day.I was intrigued by the premise of the story - two Grey Gardens-like women hit a man with their car and hide the body in a well on their secluded property, but the man is not as dead as they thought, and drives a wedge between the women. Of course, it is much more than this. As I got further into the story I was constantly reminded of an episode of Winnie the Pooh that managed to traumatise me as a kid. In the episode, Rabbit cares for a young bird, they grow close, and then when the bird wants to leave and have its own life, Rabbit cannot accept this and tries to stop it. In my childish mind, it was tragic that the bird didn't want to stay with Rabbit, especially after all that Rabbit had done for it.Hester, of course, is the Rabbit figure. Man, she was such a sad character. Her actions were really quite terrible, but I couldn't help but sympathise with her throughout. I mean, now that I'm older I get why it's outright cruel, and in the case of The Well, even abusive to try keep people close at the cost of their own will, but at the same time there is still that childish perception in me that wanted Katherine, like the little bird, to just be grateful and not spoil the (seemingly) happy life Hester had created for them. It was impressive how the book managed to make me revert to that childish feeling. Katherine can be a grating character, sure, but she doesn't deserve to be chained to Hester's side.That's why the ending left me with such an ominous feeling.I can see now what people mean when they talk about the odd kind of stories Elizabeth Jolley wrote. I'm looking forward to reading Milk and Honey, when I can finally get around it.