Review: Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Horror, Paranormal, Mystery

Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Page Count: 313

Book #1 of the Asylum series

Publisher: HarperTeen

Published: August 20, 2013

 

For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, New Hampshire College Prep is more than a summer program—it's a lifeline. An outcast at his high school, Dan is excited to finally make some friends in his last summer before college. But when he arrives at the program, Dan learns that his dorm for the summer used to be a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane.
As Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, explore the hidden recesses of their creepy summer home, they soon discover it's no coincidence that the three of them ended up here. Because the asylum holds the key to a terrifying past. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Featuring found photos of unsettling history and real abandoned asylums and filled with chilling mystery and page-turning suspense, Madeleine Roux's teen debut, Asylum, is a horror story that treads the line between genius and insanity.

 

Review:

PROS:

1. First off, this book is perfect for fans of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. This book had some really cool elements in it and I honestly picked this book up a few months ago because I was still on a Peregrine kick. I finally decided it was time to read this creepy story and I have to say, I wasn't disappointed. Here's the review!

 

2. I really loved the characters in this book. I thought that Dan was a nice protagonist because he was socially awkward and had interests in very complicated school subjects that he signed up for just for fun. He was smart, different in a sense that he was also a foster kid and had foster parents that supported him and he also had some mental health issues that he had to struggle with. I thought he was a very complex character and I really loved reading from his perspective. I also adored his friends, Abby and Jordan. Abby is an artsy character, majoring in art, and I thought she was a very upbeat person with a courageous personality. Jordan was just too loveable and I thought he was very confidant in his own skin and didn't care what people thought about him. He was funny, sarcastic and freaked out in hilarious ways. I thought it was also interesting that he was an LGBT character which is something that I thought added more variety amongst the characters in this book.

 

3. The pictures in this book were also very creepy and sometimes even a bit disturbing, which I enjoyed. I love creepy things such as books, movies, pictures, etc. This book had pictures strewn throughout the book and made a really cool collection of creepy and haunting photos that were found from real asylums which was a cool factor. Like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, this book had a collection of creepy pictures that had a story written around them. I thought the story and pictures flowed really well together and I thought the pictures were just too entertaining to look at. From a picture of a dark and eerie hallway to a haunting and disturbing yet heartbreaking picture of a little girl who was a recovering patient of a lobotomy, each image had a story behind it.

 

4. Overall, I really loved this book and I think it's the perfect read for when you're craving something dark and creepy or if you want to save a certain book for Halloween season reading. I loved the twists and turns and the plot twists and even the somewhat graphic scenes of the things that some of the patients did before coming to this once-upon-a-time psychiatric ward. I loved how you didn't know who to trust, what was happening to Dan when he experienced some very realistic feeling nightmares and if in fact, Dan was the insane or ingenious one. It was a thrilling ride and definitely one you have to read for yourself to understand.

 

The reason why I didn't give this book a five-star rating was because I felt like the book could've had a little more of a creep factor. I thought some of the story building could've been made a little more suspenseful when it came to building up a plot twist or climax in the story. Don't get me wrong, this book was exciting and suspenseful already, but I would've loved to see just a little more suspenseful build up.

 

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I hope you guys enjoyed this book review! If you have any other book requests you would like me to review, just leave a comment or send me an email! Read on bookworms! See you in the next chapter!

 

Catacomb by Madeliene Roux (Asylum #3)

Out September 1, 2015