Book review: 'Horns' by Joe Hill

Joe Hill's 'Horns' was recommended to me by my boyfriend, who couldn't stop raving about it. For a couple of months I put it aside, since I had a huge pile of books waiting to be read. But two weeks ago I finally picked it up, wondering what all the fuss was about. Well....the book didn't disappoint me! In fact, it really blew me away.

Ever since I was a kid I have been a devoted fan of Stephen King's books, especially his horror stories. When I heard that 'Joe Hill' was just a pseudonym and the writer was actually Stephen King's son, I was sceptical. How could he ever come close to his father's accomplishments? But I was just as surprised as many of the critics (who hadn't been told at first who Joe Hill really was) that King's son has true, unmistakable talent. He obviously inherited his father's love for the darker tale, but in writing he has a distinctive style of his own. I even thought it was better than his father's! The structure of the story is more coherent  than I've ever seen in Stephen King's books and there are frequent unexpected plot twists. The main characters really grew on me and I even shed a few tears. But most of all, the story was incredibly fascinating to read! A mystery, a battle between good and evil, a love story. And all this brought with a generous dose of dark humor! 

(Source: http://horrorhomework.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Joe-Hill-reads-from-Horns.jpg)

The story is about Ig, a guy who's girlfriend Merrin has been violently killed. Many believe him to be the murderer, even though he is obviously crazy in love with her. One day, he wakes up with horns. (What?! Yes... horns!) They do not just make him look like a demon, but also cause whoever lays eyes upon him to tell him their deepest desires. Using his new skills, Ig tries to find out who killed Merrin. During the process however he slowly starts to show typical diabolical behaviour. Is he turning into the devil himself, or are good and evil closely intertwined?
There are many playful references to the devil in this book (lyrics of various rock songs, snakes, matches, even a pitchfork!) and they make the story even more fun to read. At the same time, the book makes you wonder about good and evil and what really defines these concepts.
If you want to read an exciting, dark, romantic, often very funny book that is superbly written, make sure not to miss out on this one!

My rating: 9.0

Old photoshoot

These pictures were taken by various photographers at the annual Summer Darkness festival (Utrecht, the Netherlands) in 2011:

Made by a friend with my own camera (at the masked ball):

 Photograph: Henk van Rijssen

Photograph: Johan S

Outfit post: The Avengers

Last week I went to see The Avengers with my boyfriend and his graphic novel devoted friends. Against all expectations, I really enjoyed the movie! I've never been much of a super hero fan, but the movie's bad guy Loki was simply irresistable...:p (I know, I have a weird taste in men!)

I wore a casual oufit with a new t-shirt from IronFist, which has a lighthouse on it. I love lighthouses! Normally my style is a bit more feminine with lots of lace and more elegant jewelry, but this time I was aiming for something cool for a 'night out with te boys'. The outfit has nothing to do with the Avengers movie whatsoever, but I really wanted to post a picture of my new shirt that I like so much :)

Long hair videos

Last year I made my first 'hair video', to see how much it had grown. I'm planning to do this every year until I have reached my dream length. The progress of one year is clearly visible now: (Yay!)
My videos are pretty crappy by the way....I've only just started experimenting. :)

May 2011:

May 2012:

The Body Shop 'Beauty with Heart' event

Last Monday Joyce (Beauty & Metal) and I went to the Beauty with Heart event from the Body Shop, held in Amsterdam. We had won tickets for an evening of pampering, beauty advice and of course lots of information about the products from The Body Shop and their new campagne. Beauty with a Heart is promoting a world-wide ban on the testing of makeup on animals, which of course is a good and important cause. Model Lily Cole is fronting the campagne and soon there will be a special line of 'Lily Cole products' available in the shops.

During the event, makeup artist Chase Aston gave a demonstration using the new shimmer cubes, eyeliner and blush:

The shimmer cubes consist of purple colours and can be applied as light or dark (applied wet) as desired. During the event, the catering was superb. We especially enjoyed this salmon with sesame, yummy!

Our hands were massaged with bodybutter (a totally new experience to me!) and we got to choose our own palette of shimmer cubes. I chose these colours:

We were also allowed to pick one body butter, a bottle of hand sanitiser and a new 'beautifying oil'. I chose Moringa body butter (haven't tried it before), Satsuma hand sanitiser and cacao butter beautifying oil. The latter can be used on the hair as well, which is great for dry ends or hot oil treatments! 

 They also gave us a 'make over' with the shimmer cubes that we picked ourselves. 

We had a great evening and went home with a lot of new products to try and a gift card worth 10 euros! I will post a review of  each of the individual products in the future. Some more pictures of the event:

 My friend Joyce:

 The hand massages:

 The new body butter designs:

 Me looking silly (on the left):

Me being informed on the new oils:

 Pick your own shimmer cubes!

 The view from the location:

 Getting my makeup done:

Old pictures: (music) festivals

Due to circumstances, we were forced to plan our summer vacation trip for 2012 during the annual Summer Darkness festival and Castlefest. I feel sad that I will not be able to enjoy both events this year, but the good news is that we changed our destination from France to England. It's been a long time since I went to Engeland, apart from a trip to London two years ago. I've always loved Britain a lot and I can't wait to go back there for two weeks. Of course I will also have the opportunity to visit some of my favourite stores (Illamasqua, Lush) and buy some products for a much nicer price than offered online or in stores in the Netherlands!
Still feeling a bit sad about missing out on all the festival fun though, I've come up with a series of pictures of festival outfits that I wore in past years (2007 - 2011):

Graspop, 2007:

Summer Darkness, 2007:

Temple of Fantasy, 2008:

Castlefest, 2009:

Summer Darkness, 2009:

WGT, 2009:

Castlefest, 2010:

Summer Darkness, 2010:

Castlefest 2011 (made this steampunk outfit myself):

Summer Darkness 2011:

Old photoshoot

This photoshoot was held in 2011. I was asked to pose wearing beautiful handmade chokers, sold at Dominia Shop. The shoot was held both outside in the freezing cold, as well as inside a tropical greenhouse! This was the result:

 My hair was made red here in Photoshop :)

Outfit post: petticoat

As you may have seen in my recent pictures of my trip to Limburg, I wore this petticoat skirt recently. I thought it might be a bit too much for an every day outfit (I used to only wear it to festivals), but it was actually quite comfortable. A bit victorian and definately dark, but with a white skirt underneath. It's not hard to match a skirt like this with other items of clothing, since it's quite basic.
Do you like to wear petticoats? And do you wear them underneath skirts, or just like this?