I got this book from a local book store as an Advanced Reader's Copy. Before I read it, I did my research on the book and all the reviews I found told me how boring and stupid the book was.

I disagree to these reviews.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book far more than I expected. It did start off a little slow, but once I got into the book I was addicted instantly. I wanted to know more about the characters and the back story of the New Hampshire College Prep and how it used to be an Asylum.

The plot was fun to follow, and I couldn't guess the ending (which rarely happens! So this book was quite the gem). Some of the aspects of the plot were predictable, but it took wild turns that I didn't see coming, so I enjoyed it.

It did bother me a bit reading this before I went to bed, since it unsettled me a few times when I left off at a more 'scary' chapter, but it wasn't really that scary or a horrible read.

I really enjoyed this book! I did wish there was more pictures to go along with each chapter instead of just one every few (this book has illustrations that goes along with some chapters for added effect). I loved this aspect of the book though! Having illustrations added more insight into the novel and made me more interested in the story.

Overall, an amazing book and I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel!
Five out of five stars! ( )

I received a free copy and decided to give it a go on a long train journey. The found photos were interesting and added ambiance but the writing was dreadful and the characters thinly developed and boring. It reminded me of a cheap horror film where you never remember the plot, just the jump scares. ( )

not an exciting read for me......stayed somewhat stagnate ( )

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: Asylum

Dan Crawford can’t wait to start college prep classes. It’s a chance to escape being an outcast and find friends he can connect with. But he never expected an old asylum to be converted into a dorm. Dan can’t help but entice his new friends Abby and Jordan to explore the older sections they were told to stay out of. Together they will uncover unsettling truths about the asylum and stir up ghosts better left alone.

Dan finding true friends was a great theme to add to Asylum, but the character relationships were rushed. Readers barely have enough time to learn about Dan before the story adds Abby and Jordan into the mix. Jordan and Abby bonded outside of the main story, which worked quite well. But Dan did not have enough time with each of them individually to form a connection. The story does mention Dan has difficulties socializing, and the reader is able to witness the internal debates he has with himself as he tries to adjust to different social situations. But there needed to be more examples of Dan’s behavior. Instead of telling the reader, show them his issues and give some background information on what has not worked in the past for him.

The characterization was also inconsistent throughout the story. In one chapter the three friends would be carrying on just fine, then rapidly one of the others would have a complete personality change. Either growing easily frustrated or downright ignoring characters. While eventually, the reader finds out the why behind these sporadic behaviors, it would have been great to have more of a foundation for the reader to guess what happened and then do small reveals to lure readers into the overarching mysteries.

There were many subplots and mysteries to solve in Asylum. Too many. This story brought the teens together at the asylum and tried to connect each one to its past. In addition to this, they each had home lives filled with drama. If this had been a longer book, it may have worked out better, but not enough time was spent on each key point to make the story work. Instead, it seemed to skip forward without properly explaining the character's actions, and not leaving behind enough breadcrumbs for the reader to form any sort of conclusion.

Listening to the audiobook of Asylum did cut out the vintage photographs which are included in the print edition. But even with the photos to add to the mood setting of this story, the plot was too tangled. This was an extremely ambitious book, and if it had cut down on the subplots it would have been able to spend more time on the main story. Not a series I will be continuing. ( )

Oh dear. I could leave this review at that, but it really doesn’t express what I found so disappointing in this book and, as it is only the second time in my blog history I can remember giving out a one thumb rating, maybe I should elaborate.

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/review-asylum-asylum-1-madeleine-roux/




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