2016 Shelf Love Reading Challenge

It's BAAAACK! We all know I did a horrible job this year for this challenge. I think I read only two books from my shelf and I bought a few books. To be fair, I didn't read all that much in general, what with my thesis and all. And ever since I graduated I've been in a reading funk. However I am very determined to make a good job in 2016. So I'm signing up again.

Shelf Love Challenge is hosted by the very awesome girls from Chapter Break, Second Run Reviews and Bookworm Brandee. The rules are simple:

• Read books that are in your personal library that were obtained before January 1, 2016.
• Responsibly obtain books for your personal library. You may wish to abstain from purchasing books or set a book budget for yourself. You decide the best way to get control of your TBR pile and read the books you already own.
• Library books (and textbooks) do not count for the challenge. You may use your library to obtain different formats of books you already own and count those towards your goal.

Like last year, I'll only count physical books into this challenge. I'm setting my goal to 21-30 books: give your shelves a warm friendly hug.

Unlike last year, however, I won't pick a list of books in advance. I'll use the tag selflove16 here on my blog for the books I've read for this challenge. And I'll also list them on Goodreads on this shelf. I think I have more than 30 books that I need to read, but I'll settle for that.

Anyway, I can't wait to get started once January gets here :)

Sunday Book Soundtrack #19: The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

Sunday Book Soundtrack is a weekly feature at Ruby's Books, where I share some of my bookish soundtracks. Since I discovered my passion for reading years ago, I've discovered that more and more of the songs I loved remind me of certain books. So I thought I'd share my playlists with you. If you want to listen to the songs, I'll post a link to a Youtube videos for each and every title. No copyright infringement intended! I'll try to find the official videos for each song. There's no set number for each playlist, sometimes I might have 10, sometimes 5, sometimes if I'm one of my moods I'll have 15. If you want to read more about this feature, click the "show more" button below. 

I read with music. If there's no music, I can't read. And not just read, but almost anything, like studying of cooking or doing chores around the house. The only time I don't have music is when I sleep. And during exams, but that's a different story.

Sometimes it happens that a certain song and a book or a scene from the book I'm reading sort of... click. It's like they were made for each other. At least for me. And so I will almost always think of that particular book when hearing that song. I thought I'd share my book soundtracks with you.

Keep in mind that I have a very... weird taste in music. You'll find mostly rock music, country or the 80s-early 90s music in these lists. I might use some "contemporary" songs from now and then, but don't bet on it being something other than those particular genres. Also, not always the songs will be in English. If I have a link to a translation for the lyrics, I'll post it. If you like a song I'm using, that's fine. If not, that's fine too, just don't say I didn't warn you.

The songs aren't always on a book's playlist for their lyrics. Sometimes they're there for an instrument or for a feeling I get when hearing them. Also, I won't always mention what scene I used them for. If it's not a spoiler, I'll share the scene, if it is a spoiler, I'll let you guess.

Anyway, I hope you like my playlists :)

This week's book soundtrack is for The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich. If you want, you can read my review here. The theme of the book is darker, so these songs

1. Of Verona - Dark In My Imagination
2. Metallica - Enter Sandman
3. Godsmack - Voodoo
4. Eminem ft. Rihanna - The Monster
5. 30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill

Book Review: The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

Author: Dawn Kurtagich
Series: N/A
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: September 15th 2015
My Rating: 5 cups
Source: Netgalley
Blurb (from Goodreads):

Part-psychological thriller, part-urban legend, this is an unsettling narrative made up of diary entries, interview transcripts, film footage transcripts and medical notes. Twenty-five years ago, Elmbridge High burned down. Three people were killed and one pupil, Carly Johnson, disappeared. Now a diary has been found in the ruins of the school. The diary belongs to Kaitlyn Johnson, Carly’s identical twin sister. But Carly didn’t have a twin . . .

Re-opened police records, psychiatric reports, transcripts of video footage and fragments of diary reveal a web of deceit and intrigue, violence and murder, raising a whole lot more questions than it answers.

Who was Kaitlyn and why did she only appear at night? Did she really exist or was she a figment of a disturbed mind? What were the illicit rituals taking place at the school? And just what did happen at Elmbridge in the events leading up to ‘the Johnson Incident’?

Chilling, creepy and utterly compelling, THE DEAD HOUSE is one of those very special books that finds all the dark places in your imagination, and haunts you long after you've finished reading.

*Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from Netgalley and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in exchange for an honest review.


I've been trying to figure out a way to adequately express how I feel about this book for a while now. It's really hard to make myself seem half-intelligent when all I can come up with is "OMG I LOVED IT!" But it's true, I did love this book.

This book stayed with me for a few days after I finished reading it. Not in a "book hangover" way, but in a "this made me think about stuff" way. I love when a book can be about a million different things, depending on how you choose to read it. Kind of like a "Choose your adventure" story, only it's entirely up to you how you interpret it.

On one side there's the mental health aspect, which I loved. I liked that there were scenes which showed that the main characters were in therapy, but also that they had seemingly normal lives. I also loved the idea that you kind of don't know who's "healthy" and who's not. I kept wondering if there would be a twist at the end where everyone, including the detective, where all patients, The Sixth Sense style, if you will. I know, I watch too many movies :P

Then there's the supernatural, horror element. I know not many people were scared by this book, but I was. I stay away from true horror books, so this is as close as I could get to being really freaked out by a book. And I don't scare easily either.

Kaitlyn and Carly. Man, I felt so sorry for them. The entire time I was reading their story I kept wondering what had happened to them to  make them live the drama that they were living in. It doesn't matter if you think it's supernatural, therefore they're twins or if it's mental health, and as such there's only one girl with multiple-personality disorder, the fact is that this is a drama. And it's heartbreaking. There are a lot of little details that could make your heart break a little bit for these two girls.

I can also say that this is one of the few books where I didn't trust any of the secondary characters. Anyone could be a villain, anyone could have ulterior motives for hanging out with Carly and with Kaitlyn. I actually loved that the author made me doubt everyone, because, like I said earlier, it made me think about stuff and it made me see the book from different perspectives.

I loved the format of this book. There's diary entries, transcripts of interrogations and detailed descriptions of video and audio recordings. I loved that. In a way, it reminded me of some Hidden Objects video games, which I love, so I really enjoyed the format of the story. On the other hand, I reaaally wanted to know who the storyteller was, who was reading the diaries, who was "seeing" those videos. I really would've enjoyed seeing a glimpse into who that person was.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading this story and I am definitely going to read more books from this author!