The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

The Dead House

by Dawn Kurtagich

Twenty-five years ago, Elmbridge High School burned down. The blaze killed three and injured twenty, and one pupil, Carly Johnson, disappeared. For two decades, little was revealed about what became known as the Johnson Incident.

Until now.

A diary has been found in the ruins of the school. In this diary, Kaitlyn Johnson, Carly's twin, tells of the strange and disturbing sequence of events leading to the incident.

But Kaitlyn doesn't exist. She never has.

Chilling, creepy and 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.

Reviewed by pamela on

2 of 5 stars

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Everything about The Dead House should have been good. The 'found footage' approach is always something different, the premise was fantastic and the atmosphere for most of the book was really spooky and immersive.

But when I got to the end, all I could think was 'what was the point'? I felt like Dawn Kurtagich bit off a little bit more than she could chew and was trying to write too many different novels all at once. The two (?) main characters were well developed, but with so many satellite characters introduced so early on it was far too difficult to really get a sense of them as characters, especially since the male characters were poorly characterised.

The plot itself was quite formulaic, which in and of itself was not a terrible thing as it did feel like Kurtagich was going somewhere with it, but all of the disparate plot elements simply didn't come together to form a cohesive whole. The mystery with the parents went nowhere, the two girls and their 'situation' didn't get enough attention, mysterious fires, asylums, disappearances, and don't even get me started on the rubbish that was the fictional Scottish voodoo cult which could have been left out completely and the strange characterisation of the diary as personified. It was just mystery piled on top of mystery, without any form of resolution and some poorly developed character arc's.

There is definitely a good book in here. I would go so far as to say there is definitely a great book in here. But in its current form it is completely unrealised. It's too complicated and ultimately collapses under its own weight.

http://iblamewizards.com/review-dead-house-dawn-kurtagich/

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  • Started reading
  • 16 March, 2016: Finished reading
  • 16 March, 2016: Reviewed