Asylum

Never judge a book by its cover! Lesson learned, as initially, that was my enticement; however, contents do not live up to the expectation. Certainly, the author’s idea was present, on the surface, but failed to deliver.
Asylum outlines a group of teenaged whiz kids partaking in a summer college prep course while being housed in a historical sanitarium. Roux set the stage with creepy off limits areas and inquisitive kids but failed to develop either a plotline or conclusion, ending up with a watered down version of an idea that could have been ultimately great.
Overall, I was disappointed. The photo portion of the novel struck this reader as badly PhotoShopped and the interesting twists failed to meander. Additionally, Roux wrote a clearly open ended conclusion. This reader would hope that the obvious second installment grows into its full potential.

I loved anything and everything about insane asylums so I was very excited to read this. It started out good but kinda of fizzled out. The addition of the pictures made it similar to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, just not as good.

I had heard wonderful things about this book and I was very impressed with Asylum from the very beginning. It is a dark, creepy and dramatic book about a young man who lives in a renovated mental hospital and finds that after mysterious circumstances that his dorm has developed a life of its own. Dan Crawford is a typical teenager who spends too much time involved in his studies of science and history but jumps at the opportunity to experience college life at the prestigious New Hampshire College prep program for the summer. He finds that the school was just what he was looking for and immediately starts to make friends with fellow students, Abby and Jordan. One night, they decide to investigate the abandoned basement of their dorm that used to be Brookline's main office and holds case files of the asylum's infamous residents. After their midnight excursion, strange things start to happen with no logical explanation and Dan finds that some secrets should have stayed locked away in Brookline's abandoned rooms.

Madeleine Roux's Asylum is a haunting novel that provides a thrilling mystery and creepy locales that will keep you up at night. The pictures that are laced throughout the novel are a perfect addition to the story and will make the reader feel as though they are there with Dan and had me jumping at every noise that I heard. Asylum is a well-written novel that I know people will enjoy and is now one of my top books for 2013. I'm looking forward to reading more from Ms. Roux but it will be awhile before I sleep without the light on.

I thought this book had potential when I read the first few pages, but then the writing repeated itself, literally, and the story was out of sequence. Did I buy the draft? This "book" should never be sold on any site. It's a jumbled mess and I just wasted $2.00. Shame on the author, publisher and the store!

I chose this book not knowing much about it, just having read some reviews. I was not impressed. Characters not believable. It seemed as if the author started with a stack of pictures that were intriguing and then tried to come up with a story that would fit the photographs.
Prose seemed juvenile.

I felt this was a poorly written young adult novel. The main characters story was too drawn out and the dialogue was horrible. It was not creepy nor entertaining. Would recommend only to people younger than 14.

I was expecting to be scared and captivated by this book...but I was kinda disappointed. I wouldn't feel so bad if it was a $2 book but definitely not an $8..I could tell what was coming and I knew who the sculpter was half way thru. Oh well

Really poorly written. Disappointing. Like the Chinese knock off version of Miss Peregrine. Instead of full loveable characters these were flat, boring characters. 3rd person the entire time. Everyone is a little dumb quite frankly and some stuff seemed to just come out of left field.

The pictures are supposed to add to the story. Some of them were oddly placed and many didn't look like the scenes described.

This whole book was written in a choppy, disconnected way. Things are going at at snails pace at the beginning, and then all of a sudden someone is murdered? This book is nonsense and a poor excuse of a thrill.

Adult review: I read the entire book only because I had paid for it and didn't currently have something better to read. Have no desire to read the next one. No real character development. Shallow plot. They're in an asylum, and what happens is exactly what you would expect to happen. I didn't realize it was a young adults book when I purchased it but you can tell just by reading it, and not just because the characters are young. There's just no depth, and typically I can see past that if it's a quick entertaining read. If you're an adult, I'd say skip it.

Characters good, plot good, setting good, yet somehow Asylum feels like it was written for a young adult audience. It starts out strong, but ends up quite like a Nancy Drew mystery. I was somewhat disappointed.

Terrible...I read this on my Kindle and there were several times when I thought I had inadvertently skipped a chapter, because the story was so disjointed...keeping my comments short, because I don't want to waste any more of my time on this book, then I already have....

"Asylum" was a disappointment. While the beginning of the book shows potential, the ending is fragmented and rushed, leaving many questions unanswered. The story attempts to incorporate the horror of an abandoned asylum-turned-dormitory but the results are tired and altogether predictable. Overall, not worth the money.

I bought this as it was a recommendation by the store because I had bought and read the wonderful Miss Peregrines' Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. It seemed promising but as son as I started reading I sensed something was wrong. It is written in a very plain and simple style and as I continued to read it seemed obvious that it was written for young teens and not adults. Nowhere on the the store page for this book did it flag that it was teen fiction and I'm quite annoyed that I wasted my time reading it. The story is totally unfulfilling as it never explores it's own possibilities fully and the supernatural happenings are left totally unexplained. It even ends with a dreadful B movie finale that the threat is not gone yet and you can expect a sequel. Perhaps it's written purely with the hope of being picked up for a cheap horror movie. Also while the photos of Miss Perregrines' Home for Peculiar Children are haunting and unnerving and add to the atmosphere of the story, the illustrations in Asylum are badly photoshopped attempts to recreate the feeling but miss badly and act as second rate illustrations to a second rate story.

The archaic and even violent psychiatric practices of the mid-20th century are brought to terrifying life in this YA debut by experimental fiction blogger Madeleine Roux.

The antiquated photo of a man with eyes feverishly scribbled over is the first thing to greet Dan Crawford at NHCP, a summer pre-college program for academically gifted high schoolers. Dan, aged 16, is both unsettled and fascinated by the strange photograph, and according to his roommate Felix there’s plenty more where that came from. With the student accommodation being refurbished, the young enrollees must bunk in a former insane asylum residing on the edge of the secluded campus. During an obligatory meet-and-greet, Dan suffers a near-fainting spell that is soon forgotten when he befriends the scrumptious Abby Valdez and token homosexual Jordan. The trio opts to go spelunking in a restricted section of the asylum, the part that’s still an asylum, which houses patient records and more eerie photographs. But this retired mental health facility, Brookline, also holds the key to a terrifying past—one that hits close to home for Dan and his friends. The discovery of a hidden passage inside the warden’s office unspools a supernatural thread that undergirds the narrative, drawing the youngsters deeper into Brookline’s dark recesses. Before long, Dan finds himself entangled in a murder mystery after members of the student body are killed in the style of Brookline’s most infamous inpatients. Dan's sanity is further threatened by cryptic text messages, inexplicable emails, and mysterious calligraphic notes—all of which appear seemingly outta thin air. Tensions mount, a ghostly possession takes place, memory and innocence prove untenable, but the real terror comes with the revelation that Dan is a descendent of the sanatorium’s erstwhile warden.

Asylum is a mildly entertaining funhouse of tempered fright. Roux pulls readers in with the promise of exploring the bowels of an abandoned mental hospital laced with moss and a sordid history of grotesque experimentation. This is familiar territory for anyone acquainted with the genre, and although Asylum runs the risk of becoming an empty exercise in teen-marketed horror tropes, the author manages to use said tropes to page-turning effect. Roux maintains an aura of menace throughout, but never allows the creep factor to escalate to full-on horror, instead tempering the chills and thrills to a degree that’s reminiscent of R.L. Stine. Brimming with disturbing photo illustrations of tormented patients and dehumanizing treatments, this brisk series opener reminds us of not only mankind’s penchant for the unethical but of the abject casualties of science. Much like those found in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, the mock black-and-white images effectively enhance the book’s hair-raising mood.

Clumsy characterization proves a readerly obstacle for the story’s central players. While Roux supplies audiences with just enough tidbits about their lives to make them come alive, their newfound relationships progress too quickly and their erratic behavior serves only to complicate matters. Within a week of meeting one another, Dan, Jordan, and Abby are beset by wearisome bickering and volatile mood swings despite the lack of development between them. At one point Abby agrees to a date with Dan and the two return later to find Jordan waiting outside her dorm room, brooding and neck-deep in a bottle, all because Abby neglected to cancel a prior engagement with Jordan. Perhaps more importantly, when Dan and Jordan aren’t convinced that Abby’s aunt was a former patient at Brookline, her irritation toward the boys is a trifle too strong for people she only recently met and far too mercurial even for melodrama’s sake.

Despite Asylum’s wonderfully ghoulish cover and familiar horror archetypes—a haunted building, darkened corridors, and curious teenagers with little sense of self-preservation—the scares are easily digestible and unlikely to be applauded by the hardcore horror community. And yet, Roux’s debut is a suitable gateway read for younger readers looking to ease themselves into the genre. If you're looking for a well-crafted throwback to old-school horror—just eerie enough to cause a white knuckle or two—then look no further than Asylum.

Rating: 2/5

Genre: YA Horror

Recommended Age: 13+ (jump scares and creepy)

Pages: 310

Author Website

the store Link

Disclaimer: None, I bought this book on my own!

Synopsis: For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, the New Hampshire College Prep program is the chance of a lifetime. Except that when Dan arrives, he finds that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline Dorm—formerly a psychiatric hospital. As Dan and his new friends Abby and Jordan start exploring Brookline's twisty halls and hidden basement, they uncover disturbing secrets about what really went on here . . . secrets that link Dan and his friends to the asylum's dark past. Because Brookline was no ordinary mental hospital, and there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

I like scary books sometimes and I’ve always heard Madeleine Roux wrote some really good ones. When I read House of Furies last year I wasn’t that impressed, but decided to trudge on with Asylum anyways. While I felt it was better, I still didn’t enjoy the book that much. I thought the world building was much better than House of Furies and the book has really creepy and cool illustrations, but for the most part I was disappointed.

I thought the storyline of haunted school was a bit overdone and this one didn’t strike me as anything unique. The pacing is a huge issue in the book. There’s action over 2-3 pages and then everything is normal again. The chapters are very weirdly done as they do nothing to help with the flow of the book. The character development was almost non-existent and the main character was very frustrating to me.

Verdict: If you can get past how choppy this book is, it’s a really good horror book .Otherwise it’s frustrating and tired.

***I received this book as a gift

PROS:
The photographs are ominous, and startling in the most chillingly graphic way. The black and white photos depict patients with dead, haunted eyes, doctors and nurses with creepy smiles, and jarring poses that will have you guessing at the secrets hidden behind those expressions. Specs of blood, handprints, bare bulbs in cellar-like padded rooms with manacles, and spotted gurney’s suggest a tortured, shadowed existence. Surgical instruments stained with blood, healed over, jagged wounds point to procedures too backwards, and painful to comprehend. These pictures are things of nightmares, loss, and macabre.

The plot twist was unexpected, and jilting.

Stories of the patients in the sanitarium were truly eerie, and a touch menacing. The diary entries, ghoulish notes, and crazed quotes made for a thrilling build up that will have you second-guessing everything.

CONS:
While the story attempted to use to the pictures as a supplement or even explanation of plot elements, the descriptions, actions, and events do not do the photos justice. What is left unsaid is far more terrifying.

Slow, and hard to get into.

Dan is boring. He’s completely devoid of any interesting, memorable characteristics except for his dwindling sanity.

Nearly all of the characters were undeveloped, the dialogue was stilted, forced, and a little unrealistic. The sheer anger, borderline rage that suddenly took over was so weird that it was unbelievable, and felt unnecessary. The conflicts between the three main characters were random, and complete over reactions. It seems that the author was trying to make these conflicts so out of place that they would be associated with the supernatural, ghostly elements of the plot but it just didn’t quite get to that point.

Oh dear. I could leave this review at that, but it really doesn’t express what I found so disappointing in this book.

I had such high expectations for this based on not only the synopsis but the cover image, and none of those expectations were filled. As I read through this I got the uncomfortable feeling that, not only was this Author aiming to produce a novel with the calibre of Miss Peregrine’s House for Peculiar Children but somewhere in the mix the Author had actually submitted a draft copy to the publishers instead of their final edited copy.

The characters are supposed to be 16 years old, so unless the baseline for all 16 years old has now changed, these were not in that age group. The protagonist is not the kind I was expecting in a book of this genre; he was whiny, possessive and had a superiority complex bigger than any I have seen in a novel. Throughout the novel he is constantly telling the readers about how much better he is than anyone else, and after a time this becomes tedious to the point where I wanted to ground him in his room at home without any outside contact; yes I wanted to put him in solitary confinement. Despite him gradually losing some of these traits as the book progressed, the damage had been done and I found myself being unable to like or even care about him or what happened to him. Too many of the characters were written in a stereotypical manner, or how the Author visualized teenagers to be; the female character who the Author felt they had to reminder the reader every few sentences how beautiful they were, the cookie cutter girls’ gay best friend. This may have been acceptable in this book had the Author only taken time to give the characters depth and something interesting that the reader could catch hold off, unfortunately I found them all to rather too one-dimensional for my tastes.

Abandoned asylum, strange happenings. All the workings of what could’ve have been a very good horror tale were buried so deeply in this book that they were gasping for air. I’m also not sure what yardstick the Author used to decide this would be scary reading for the intended audience but, in my experience of teenagers I think only those with a very weak constitution would have found this remotely disturbing compared to the daily horrors they are subject to in the media. The book does contain some very stunning photographs, unfortunately these are not the Authors original works, which led me to believe that they couldn’t even be bothered to take the time to discover original locations for inclusion.

With good editing and maybe a little more plot and character development this could have been a better book than it actually was; the one thumb rating is purely because I finished it. I’m not going to be reading any other books by this Author and I understand this is the beginning of a series, which will also go unread. However if you looking for a book that doesn’t contain a taxing plotline and deep meaningful characters that you can connect with, this may be the one for you.

Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/07/28...