The Dead House

This book is a twisted roller coaster that will mess with your mind. However I might suggest that you don't book an appointment with Dr. Annabeth Lansing or maybe you do. Your choice. I thought that this book had the Blair Witch Project influence to it. In a good way. I really liked the interviews between Dr. Lansing and Carly/Kaitlyn. The video footage was creepy. The transform seen on the footage would be a little hard to believe if not caught on tape. Than there were the journal entries. Very creative that the pages were burned to give the feel of the journal being found after the "Kaitlyn Johnson" incident. It was almost like I could feel the delicate paper in my hands with the black soot and smell of ash. The further that I got into the story the creepier it got. This book does mess with your mind as a psychological thriller but with paranormal aspects as well. I can not wait to read this author's next book.

Carly and Kaitlyn Johnson are two people in the same body. They have been this way their entire lives no matter what Dr. Lansing tries to tell them. Carly is awake during the day while Kaitlyn is awake at night. They each have their own journals, which are kept private even from each other, and they communicate through notes. After the accident, the girls stayed full time in a psychiatric care, but are now allowed to attend Elmridge High, a boarding school. One day, Kaitlyn sees a figure and dismisses it. These visions, whether real or imagined, then recur with alarming regularity and realism. Kaitlyn then seeks help for these attacks. Does Carly/Kaitlyn have dissociative identity disorder? Is she being haunted or is she just delusional?The Dead House takes place years after Elmbridge High burns down and after a number of students die or disappear during that time. It's an unsolved mystery that has gained popularity over a decade and the authorities are still trying to find out what happened. The book is a compilation of all the evidence related to the case: singed journals, descriptions of video clips, post its, testimonies, transcripts of therapy sessions, flyers, newspaper clippings, and instant messages. The amount of detail is insane. The edges of Kaitlyn's journal are burned throughout the book. Tons of fonts are used to detail the different mediums and handwritings. Some papers have bloodstains or doodles. The different perspectives and sheer detail involved are the book's strongest aspects. There are two interpretations of the plot: either Kaitlyn is plagued by demons and an evil spellcaster or she is delusional and others play into that delusion as reality. The two sides are pretty thoroughly explored. Dr. Lansing, Kaitlyn/Carly's therapist, insists that Kaitlyn is a personality created by Carly's mind to protect her from the trauma of witnessing her parent's deaths, which neither of them remember. The visions and attacks could simply be delusions that were worsened by improper medication that causes psychosis and improper treatment. On the other hand, one of Carly's friend is a practitioner of Scottish witchcraft insists that she is possessed by a demon and targeted by an evil magic practitioner. The text never really picks one side or the other. I didn't connect with the Scottish magic stuff and I greatly preferred the psychological thriller aspects. The demons and magic parts simply weren't as strong. The first half of the story is the stronger half because it focuses more on the psychological aspects of the story and introducing all the characters. Even though Carly is assumed to be the more dominant personality, we only really get to know Kaitlyn. She has never seen the daylight and mostly keeps to herself. Her friend circle has only a couple of people. I like Kaitlyn even though she is sometimes selfish. She isn't perfect and copes in her own ways, but cares for her sister unconditionally. The second half of the book has her descending into all this magic stuff and doing uncharacteristic, horrible things. She really lost my sympathy at that point and the book felt like it lost its way. I would give another book by Dawn Kurtagich a try because most of the book was interesting and addictive.

I'm not sure if I'm totally on board with the audio version of this one, simply because the voice sounded a little whiney at times, but that could just be the female voice for me, especially paired with some of the music/sounds added in for dramatic effect. Some of the characters I really liked portrayed how they were. I'm new to audio books in general, so we shall see. The book itself though was fairly good and kept me interested for the most part.

Wow. Just wow. I received the audiobook free through Audiobooksync And this...was...brilliant. Such a haunting mash of perspectives. The quotes complement the mood perfectly and the - for once - the music is a great fit. I love how the unreliable narrator leaves everything with a tinge of mystery through the very end. What's real? What's true? Who knows? It's amazing.

This is the first of the free audio sync books for 2017. LT predicts I probably won't like it and it is accurate. This is a book about young people, dark arts, mental illness and dissociative identity disorder vs paranormal. It is a debut novel by the author Dawn Kurtagich. Dawn Kurtagich is a writer of psychologically sinister fiction. She lives in Wales.She writes and blogs for YA Scream Queens and is a member of the YA League. The Dead House is very dark. It is told through a mixture of medias such as diary entries, news clippings, video footage, and various interviews. There is swearing, sex, cutting, eating disorder, dark arts, hallucinations and a whole lot of violence. There are some interesting psychological terms including the title Dead House. Houses often being ourselves. There is a Jungian feel as well. Is there anything particularly new in the book. This is certainly not the first book to use mixture of media to tell the story (Epistolary style, in fact Dracula used this format. It also isn't the first young adult book that has cutting, swearing, sex, violence. The plot was difficult because of the multiple media used, the various characters (seemed like a surplus of characters) and the jumping back and forth. The setting is in England, an old school and a psychiatric hospital. I do think the author did achieve what she sent out to do and that was to write a book that would enlighten the reader about DID (dissociative identitiy disorder). Stars: 2.6

So this book really, really worked for me on two levels and failed hard on a third. First off, horror: I was scared. Sweet jebus, the grinning girl. Second, mental illness: the point of view character is the alter of a girl with DID. The mental illness is treated seriously, not explained away by the supernatural events, and the alter is taken seriously as a person. This is mindblowing in a horror novel; the only one I've read before that does the same thing is The Drowning Girl, where the point of view character has schizophrenia and also meets supernatural creatures.The fail, though - I can understand wanting to make up a religion rather than offend real practitioners. But if you're gonna do that, you have to actually *make up a religion,* not rename horror movie Voodoo and then say that this thing is older, more powerful, and oh, coincidentally invented entirely by white people. Sheesh.

Loved the format of this book. The premise was interesting and while the ending was foreshadowed throughout the book, there was a nice twist at the end that gave the reader a good "gotcha" moment.

Ok, reread complete and I have to say that after reading the finalized copy, I have to increase my rating to 5 stars! I LOVE the style of the pages and it totally made the book even better. Definitely completed the creepy factor. Go check this book out if you haven't already! So good!

An unsettling, creepy story about a school that burnt down 25 years ago and a diary that told of events that led up to the disaster.This is a book aimed at teens, but adults may find it a great read also.I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Hatchette Children's Group via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

This is a book full of creativity and creepiness in equal measure. It tells the story of a mysterious fire that happened at a high school two decades ago, an unsolved crime where the main suspect is a girl who doesn't seem to exist. Kaitlyn Johnson is the alter ego of Carly Johnson, and it is her diary that is discovered so many years later among the ruins.Readers learn about what happened right alongside "the witness", who has collected Kaityln's diary entries, notes between her and Carly, medical files, transcripts of therapy sessions and police interviews, and video clips (described for the readers in great detail), in an attempt to piece together what really happened that night.I love YA horror/mystery books, and I love books that utilize mixed media (like Night Film, another really creative, really creepy read). The Dead House had me hooked from the first page and never let me go. It kept me guessing, left me reeling, and had me curled up on my couch for hours to find out what happened next. I look forward to seeing more from Dawn Kurtagich!

Review of "The Dead House" by Dawn Kurtagich. February 2, 2016From the book cover, to the description, to my peek inside to see in the middle of the book to see if the writing was worth reading, (yes that's a terrible habit I have. Especially when I get back to said peeked at place and say "Well I'll just skip this because I read it 6 months ago in the bookstore when I bought it because I didn't have Indie books to review," and then realize, was this the one that had the snuffalupagus in roller skates or the mad hatter serving everyone arsenic??? Maybe I should stop that. Yet, as always, I digress.) I will say I have been beyond excited to read this book and it absolutely did not disappoint me!This book is a delightfully creepy novel that is told in the fashion of diary entries, post it notes, psychiatric records, and police investigation notes from the view point of "Kaitlyn," or is it "Carly" whose haunted voice I still hear ringing in my head a few days after being finished. In the telling of the story the character "Carly is who gets the daytime. The warmth and comfort of the sun and what we all proceive as the "normal" part of the day, while Kaitlyn gets the night with all its back alleys and shady people. The part of our society and our own lives that we awe afraid of. The night is the boogie man's time, the night is for Satan and evil, the night is where we all walk just a little faster, while looking behind us for "what was that noise?" The night is for Kaitlyn. The author, Dawn Kurtagich," pulled an amazing plot twist which I never saw coming and that's very unusual for me. There is the background of an accident, and accident that claims the lives of her parents, but leaves Kaitlyn and her little sister Jaime alive, but broken. The story is set in a school meant for recovering, troubled kids that are just coming out of institutions before going home. I just can't give away spoilers as I HATE when I have that happen, so what I will say is there is murder and mayhem, people disappearing, the body count is almost as high as the characters we are introduced to, and there is love and psychosis. Those are always a GREAT combination as well as black magic and the peril of many souls are at stake. The uniqueness of this book is that once you start it you are reading newspaper articles, then journal entries. The pages appear burned and as if something horrible has happened. The more you turn those fabulous pages the deeper you delve into the world of Kaitlyn, and her world of madness. This alone causes people to shudder. Are we all afraid that madness might be catching?This book for me was creepy, compelling and I definitely felt compulsed to continue reading the book. (So I will admit being up almost 48 hours because I didn't want to put it down!) What a dark and twisted story telling world lives within the author, Dawn Kurtagich, and I am in love with it! I hope to find more wonderful books by this author! So without ado...."The Dead House" by Dawn Kurtagich was such a fantastic read that I will break my own rule on reviews and give it 5 parachutes out of 5 parachutes from this humble book reviewer. (And Dawn, should you ever read one of my reviews, especially this one, I would love to swap stories with you. This humble emergency nurse and tender to broken souls and those in need of rescue felt amazing that you tackled mot only psychosis and our growing mental health population, you did it with class and in a horror story. In my book you are one amazing author! I wish you best journeys in your career! ~~ J, the Emergency RN.)You can also find my reviews posted on Instagram (@boots_n_books_wild_ride); Twitter (@PnJbookreview), Tumblr (imagination-aspiration), The Literary Guild (Emergency RN), Goodreads (PNJbookreview), Google Plus, and Amazon.

WTF.No. Seriously. What the f*ck was that?Once I started this book, I couldn't - wouldn't put it down. It's kept me sucked in and was so d*mn compelling that I NEEDED to know what was the cause of all of this. Was She crazy? Who did it? Was it paranormal? What is real? What is fake? So many questions. Thought many answers would soon be answered.Until...The ending. Not only was there absolutely no answers. It was the most anticlimactic thing I have ever laid my eyes upon. Like soggy d*mn Wheaties cereal or something. This whole book is lies! LIES I TELL YOU!!!It builds and sucks you in and keeps you were... like the freaking dead house and then the end happens and you are left wondering what in the hell your suppose to do with it. I have no WORDS for what I feel about that, honestly. I think facial features covers that, pretty much. So because of the ending, it will be 3 stars instead of 5.I would like to ADD that this book was awesome, the ONLY thing I didn't like was the ending. I thought it could have ended better or at least there would be a book 2 or something. That's just my thoughts on it. I hate cliffhangers.

The Dead House by Dawn KurtagichSource: NetgalleyMy Rating: 2½/5 starsMy Review: BAH!!! I find it difficult to turn down a book that has a psychiatric element to it and that is exactly what drew me to The Dead House. Unfortunately, I found the read to be a mixed bag of good and not so good. Here’s the breakdown: What I liked: *I like the format of the book. The story is told not so much through the characters but through the evidence left behind by the characters. For example, there is video footage that is described, there is the diary of Carly/Kaitlyn Johnson, there are the medical records and notes of the shrink who work with Carly/Kaitlyn, and there is the notes and records from the various police investigations. *Carly and Kaitlyn: The whole split personality thing is pretty cool and believe it or not, it is quite easy to keep the two straight as you are reading. Though both personalities inhabit a single body, each girl sees herself as an individual with her own wants and desires, likes and dislikes. Though the two never overlap, Carly has the day and Kaitlyn the night, they are in contact with one another through their diaries and purple post-it notes. I really enjoyed the dynamic between the two girls and how they relied on one another for their very survival. When one of the personalities is suppressed (that is, integrated) all Hell breaks loose. What I didn’t like: *The insinuation that magic and/or black magic is involved in all of the mayhem. With spilt personalities in an angsty teenage girl, there is more than enough to fill the pages with drama and despair. In truth, I found the inclusion of magic and black magic to be somewhat ridiculous and it detracted from the story. *The repetition. There is A LOT of repetition in this read and at some point, I found myself skipping sections I realized were repeats of earlier chapters and/or passages. It is abundantly clear Carly and Kaitlyn are dependent on one another and when the integration occurs, there is far too much desperate calling out for the return of the lost personality. While I certainly agree some of that calling out needs to be there, there doesn’t need to be nearly as much as there is. *The ending. Are you kidding me? 440 pages got me to that ending?? There is some serious build-up to what is referred to as “the Johnson Incident” and when I got to the end, I expected far, far more than I got. Furthermore, I found there to be very little resolution in the end. While many readers/reviewers may find this to be totally appropriate to the overall read, I found it to be quite frustrating. The Bottom Line: This is a read I wish I hadn’t invested so much time and energy in. This is a really long read and while the chapters are short and move along at a decent pace, there are too many big things that took away from my overall enjoyment of the read. From a purely technical stand point, I can’t make any complaints or criticisms it is in the other areas of the read that I found it to be somewhat of a failure.

‘Some people say that night blooms. But night descends self-consciously. Night cuts slowly.’Is it possible for two souls to inhabit a single body? By day, Carly is in control but as soon as the sun sets Kaitlyn takes over. Every day, the same pattern. The two are aware of the others existence, calling one another sister, writing notes back and forth to each other. When they lose their parents in a car accident and they are committed to a mental hospital after being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, Kaitlyn doesn’t handle this very well. The counselor sees her as the “wrong” identity, the one that needs to be dealt with and gotten rid of. Kaitlyn begins hearing voices, seeing a frightening girl that she’s not sure is real or simply a figment of her imagination, and nightmares of a house of terror. Kaitlyn has to deduct exactly what is fact and what is fiction in order to find out the truth about Carly and of herself.Flash forward to two decades later and we learn that a tragic fire took place at Carly’s school killing several students with Carly herself being declared missing. Not until Kaitlyn’s diary is uncovered do we learn of what really caused the fire and what took place that disastrous day. It uncovers much more than a simple psychological mystery; there is dark magic and murder and horror. The story unfolds through a series of e-mails, medical transcripts, diary entries, and notes between the duo. Epistolary stories are a favorite of mine, giving me the feel that I’m sorting through documents attempting to uncover the mystery and solve the investigation and The Dead House definitely gave me that feel. The writing was terrific and while it didn’t necessarily scare (few stories do these days though) several passages did leave my skin crawling.‘I am lucky to be here. The Dead House descended like music curdling into time, and as it did I grew wet and cold, and it was dark and I was so alone… It had devoured me.’While I loved the feel of this novel I did feel it bit off more than it could chew adding a few too many side stories that weren’t ultimately necessary to the already tangled mystery and the strangeness of the dark magic inclusion that never felt fully fleshed out. The romance(s) were equally trivial putting a melodramatic spin on things that definitely could have been omitted to maintain clarity and focus on the real story. What really brought this one down for me was the ending. I’m all for endings of ambiguity that leave me to make up my own mind about how things turned out, but this one ends like you ran into a dead end. There were just far too many unresolved questions and too few answers for my liking, but if you like concocting your own ending then this is the book for you. I still very much enjoyed the premise and the execution and look forward to reading more from this debut author.

Carly and Kaitlyn are either sisters who share the same body or Kaitlyn is Carly’s alter personality. Boom. Hits hard right at the start, right? Carly lives in the day, and Kaitlyn lives in the night. The reader learns at the very beginning of the book that there was a fire at a boarding school years ago in which a few teens died and Carly went missing, and the book contains broken bits of her/their story.The Dead House is written in a series of diary entries, videos, doctor reports, police reports, emails, newspapers, and a few other mediums. I love it when book are written like this, but I also feel like this one needed a go-between for the mediums and the reader, especially since there were videos involved. I think I may have liked it better if a detective had reopened the case and was going through all the old evidence and that’s how the videos were described to the readers. The pictures really didn’t add anything to the story for me. They weren’t all that creepy and just seemed to be there to be “there”.So what’s with The Dead House? Something starts coming for Kaitlyn and Carly, and of course Carly is bffs with a Scottish witch named Naida. Typical teen supernatural plot of kiddos playing around with things they shouldn’t be touching, or is Carly/Kaitlyn’s doctor right and she’s just getting worse and dragging down an already disturbed girl with her? Oh my. Naida was an amazing character, though I wish we could have seen more of how people responded to her…uniqueness.I do have to say that the guy characters absolutely suck in this book, unless you like them to hang around for pure eye-candy. They basically did nothing unless it was time to screw up something or make kiss-y faces. I like strong female leads but not at the cost of roasting the guys and serving them up on silver platters with their dignity fried to bits. Can’t we all just get along?The best part of the book is the guessing! Some of Carly/Kaitlyn’s friends believe her, some think they should get her help. Do you believe your best friend or tell them they’re crazy and send them off to the looney bin? Gah! There’s a few dozen red herrings thrown into the mix, none that I feel that I can reveal in a review, but there’s enough twists and turns to keep the reader entertained even though you might pick up and a few of them.I’m usually all for mental illness horror books. It doesn’t bother me the slightest. But what does bug me is the author making it seem like the meds and the Doctor are evil. I didn’t take any points away for this, it’s more cautionary than anything, because sometimes Doctors & meds can be evil, but more often than not a mental patient really needs his/her meds to function and it can be really trying to keep taking them.

I listened to this novel because it was from the free SYNC audio downloads. I think many of you who like horror will like this novel. Two decades ago, a fire swept through Elmbridge High killing three people, leaving Carly Johnson missing and a mysterious Kaitlyn Johnson who doesn’t exist. What follows in the novel is what has been found--videos, diary entries, interviews, tapes, etc. Carly and Kaitlyn (Katie) are “two souls in one body.” Carly lives in the body during the day, and Katie gets the night. Her best friend believes in the Scottish supernatural tales and believes there are other entities in play with Carly and Kaitlyn when Carly disappears. Their therapist believes the two personalities are integrating--she assumed Carly would be the dominant personality. She explains that Katie must call herself Carly (that’s their legal name) and integrate both personalities. The question for the reader is--is this truly multiple personalities or other world entities inhabiting a person? Often in history, hysteria takes over creating a situation that becomes infamous. In this case, the best friend believes in these supernatural elements. Does she convince the others and hysteria takes over, leaving some dead? Kaitlyn misses Carly and worries because she finds evidence of things she doesn’t remember. One of the reasons the therapist believes there are multiple personalities is that Carly needed a way to cope with her parents’ death. The reader wonders what happens--eventually, one witness tells what he saw and heard. There is also a younger sibling who can immediately tell if the person is Carly or Kaitlyn, but she is rarely allowed to visit. As the novel builds in intensity, Kaitlyn loses more and more focus, not knowing what is real and what isn’t. She trusts her friend and her boyfriend, but can she trust herself? If you like a creepy novel, I would recommend this one. It ends as any good horror flick should end, but that’s all I’ll say. The audiobook was well done although it was a bit overdone at times when the performers were trying for ultra-creepy and end up sounding a little amusing. I’m not a horror fan; I didn’t think this was a great example of horror--I did find it to be typical. If this is your genre, you’ll like it.

First let me say I had no idea before I got an ARC of this novel that it would be written in the epistolary style as a collection of mostly diary entries, though it also includes interview transcripts, descriptions of video footage, emails and newspaper articles, etc. Not to mention the huge visual component! I picked up The Dead House because I love horror and I’m also always on the lookout for good creepy YA, but seriously nothing could have prepared me for the surprise I got when I opened up the book.In a word, it’s gorgeous. It’s made to look like a compiled report, drawing evidence from multiple sources detailing a disturbing and mysterious “incident”. The book also makes liberal use of images, different fonts, and other visual embellishments to add even great realism to the story. But before I could fall too deeply in love with the eye candy, my cynical side immediately leaped into the picture with a reality check. After all, pretty pages are certainly all well and good, but the real test of course is how well the story stands up in spite of that.We open with a newspaper article dated February 4, 2005 describing an inferno that ravaged a prestigious boarding school, killing three teenagers and injuring twenty. Next comes an introduction to the report, revealing that two decades have passed since the fire (now referred to as the “Johnson Incident”) but new information has come to light prompting a reinvestigation of the events that led up to the tragedy.One student, an orphan named Carly Johnson, went missing during the incident but her body was not found among those recovered from the burned ruins. To this day, her whereabouts remain a mystery. No one could deny though, that Carly was a very disturbed girl, as evidenced from her writings in a scorched diary discovered at the school. By all accounts, she struggled with Dissociative Identity Disorder, writing in her diary not as Carly but as her alter “Kaitlyn”, who only emerges after sunset. But who exactly was Kaitlyn Johnson? Was she really just a mental construct of Carly’s mind, or was she something more?All I have to say is, DAMN this is one creepy book. If you don’t like the epistolary style however, I can’t imagine this book would do anything for you, but I loved it and I thought it made this book an incredibly immersive experience. I found The Dead House really hard to put down, and ended up finishing it in a little more than a day, and it only took me that long because I made myself take a break a couple of times so I could savor it. The format made it a very quick read, but the story was also very addictive and fun; in spite of myself, I found myself totally sucked in.What makes this one fascinating is also its main character, a one hell of an unreliable narrator. The book is an intimate look into the labyrinthine mind of Kaitlyn Johnson, though the difficulty of separating her words into fact versus fiction is further compounded when faced with the question of whether or not she actually exists. Kaitlyn believes she is real, and that’s what matters in the end. Her diary entries reveal a desperate soul wanting nothing more to be believed that she is not just a symptom or a made-up part of Carly’s mind. In her state of mind, she makes decisions that sometimes won’t make sense or may seem very extreme.All throughout the book though is a sense of ambiguity – which isn’t necessarily a negative, especially when we’re talking about paranormal horror or psychological thrillers. It’s eerie and unsettling precisely because you won’t get all the answers tied up neatly with a bow and served on a platter. By design, we are constantly kept guessing: Are we looking at the results of an actual paranormal situation or the ravings of a mentally unstable teenager? The report is presented with all the pieces of evidence ordered by date, the whole story being gradually revealed to the reader as each page moves us closer towards the day of the incident. This a book best experienced firsthand, so I hesitate to give much more information about the plot.Did I have my misgivings though? Well, yes. I thought the ending wrapped up way too quickly, but this is in part due to the limitations of the format. But there’s no denying that all the major reveals came hard and fast, all in the last 30 pages or so. There was also one “twist” that was painfully predictable, the number of red herrings thrown at us notwithstanding. Part of the problem was a romance that felt out of place, among other relationships between Kaitlyn/Carly and other characters that just didn’t add up. I am also a little tired of YA books that portray doctors and especially mental healthcare professionals as incompetent, insensitive or overbearing. In this case, poor Dr. Lansing was all three, which I felt was a rather inelegant way to paint her as a villain early on and drum up sympathy for Kaitlyn.These flaws were very minor though, certainly not enough to take much away from the experience. All told, I had a really good time with The Dead House. I confess I had my doubts when I first started this novel and even resolved to keep a level head while reading so that I wouldn’t be dazzled by the unique structure of the novel and the flashy visuals. All the same, I ended up devouring this book. It’s undeniably entertaining and addictive, which sets it apart from being just another gimmick or run-of-the-mill YA horror.

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: The Dead House is a terrifying and tragic take on a girl with a disturbed mind. Engrossing read that I couldn’t read fast enough but the ending did fall a little flat for me.Opening Sentence: 3 DEAD, 1 MISSING IN SCHOOL FIREThe Review:The Dead House is a book that is a little hard to describe and after finishing it, I have mixed feelings about the story that I read. The Dead House is set in the future but is primarily filled with a story that happened in the past. There are some paranormal elements to this story but the main focus is on mental illness.Carly Johnson is just your normal girl during the day. She goes to school and has friends but she does suffer from anorexia. Kaitlyn Johnson is not your normal girl. At night she takes over Carly’s body and explores the boarding school they live at. She doesn’t really have too many friends. She is mean-spirited and not very nice. She also eats when Carly does not. You see Carly and Kaitlyn share the same body but they have their own personalities, feelings and memories.Carly and Kaitlyn refer to themselves as sisters even though the share one body. They write to each other through their diaries and through post-it notes. They let each other know what they have done during the day or night. They even make requests for each other. Carly is excited to go back to school while Kaitlyn is not. When Carly and Kaitlyn are not at school they spend their time at the Claydon Mental Institute, because their parents died in a tragic accident that no one will tell them about. The doctor in charge of their care believes that Carly suffers from DID, dissociative identity disorder, or what I would say is multiple personalities. What the doctor doesn’t believe is that Carly and Kaitlyn have lived their whole lives this way, even before the accident.Strange things begin to happen to Kaitlyn. She starts seeing a strange girl. She begins to refer to her as Dee, which is what Kaitlyn refers to her diary as, so she believes she is seeing the personality of her diary and the deep, disturbed emotions that are explained within. Then one day, Kaitlyn wakes up and it is morning! Carly is gone! Kaitlyn and Carly’s friends decide they will do whatever is necessary to bring back Carly, including black magic. Kaitlyn feels that she is unworthy and that Carly is the good one, the one who should live.This story is quite strange and totally had me hooked. I loved every part of this story up until the end. I thought I had things figured out and then something else would happen and completely change where I thought the story was going. The Dead House is definitely for fans who like the ambiguous endings. I don’t. I want to know exactly what happened. There were still too many documents that weren’t unlocked at the end that I think would have explained things that happened a bit better.The Dead House is told primarily through the dairy entries, videotape footage and audio interviews. It is here that you get the since of how mentally ill Kaitlyn is. She seems like she is sane and completely normal during a few entries and then the next few just unravel and show a mind at disarray.At first I really felt sorry for Kaitlyn, there are some things that I wish I could discuss but I think they would be too spoilery for this review. I will say, that I was hoping that Kaitlyn would figure out that she was in fact the better sister… and that some of the events didn’t play out like they initially thought.Overall, The Dead House is a tragic story. Do not expect a happy ending with this one. While I was really engrossed in this story from beginning to end I did feel a bit depressed at the ending. Maybe I missed one vital clue, if so, will someone let me know? Otherwise, you are left with an ending that you can make up yourself.Notable Scene:I am afraid of the dark.No, not just tense. Not just tense at all, Dee. I am was am a child of the night—I even need it… and I am petrified of it. Some kind of joke, right? But it’s true. And more than I’m afraid of the dark, I fear the light (ha ha). I fear the sun, and I fear the exposure. So, really, I’m not fit for life. One or the other, kid. And if I face that truth for too long, Dee, it’ll break me. So I have to lie to myself to survive.But lying is a habit, and it’s addictive. You lie. It breeds. You lie again. It grows. And one day you wake up and realize that everyone around you has this weird idea about who you are, and you don’t recognize the person they’re describing. You don’t understand why they’re treating you the way they do.Or not treating you.It’s like you have a cancer.I’ve pushed everyone away. Even Carly. I live behind a veneer of Teflon that I worked hard to grow and then to maintain. I could blame it on the accident murder accident death fact that our parents left us, left me, but it would be unfair. Because the truth is… I was like this before they died. I pushed them away too, and now nothing I do will ever change that.They saw a drunk, when I was broken.They saw sarcasm, when I was sobbing.They saw me push them away, when I was screaming for their love.It’s too hard. I can’t admit to this flaw—this chink in my armor. So I walked around in that ever-night, and I felt afraid, and I climbed on the roof hoping that someday I would feel the bright moon on my skin. I still long for that, and more. Until then, Dee… I’ll be honest. I’ll be honest with you.I’m afraid. I’m so, so afraid.And I wish there were arounds around me and words in my ear, breath on my neck… telling me that everything will be okay, that someone loves me, that I’m not a mistake, not a waste, not a nothing. Telling me that, no, I’m not a child of darkness, and there is a place for me in the light.I want Carly to tell me.But if she can’t—if she can’t tell me that and still be with me, then I’ll take the dark. I’ll take the dark gladly—if only she’ll come back to me. If she’ll come back and put me in the back room and take her place in the light.I’m sorry I ever wanted it.I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry–FTC Advisory: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers provided me with a copy of The Dead House. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.