[eARC Review] Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Tuesday, August 20, 2013


Title: Asylum
Author: Madeleine Roux
Genre: YA, Horror
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Release Date: August 20, 2013
Publisher: HarperCollins

Purchase
Amazon | Chapters | TBD | Goodreads







Asylum is a thrilling and creepy photo-novel perfect for fans of the New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

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
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I am not one for horror movies, i refuse to see them and when certain trailers come on *cough* The Conjuring *cough* I tend not to watch. I hate the feeling of being scared, it is not a feeling I love so when I saw that HarperTeen was publishing a YA horror novel I deliberated for a very long time on whether I actually wanted to read it. It is one thing to watch something scary, but it a totally another beast all together when you let your imagination take over for the written word. And I will tell you now that Asylum was not a book I should have read alone, and at night. But I am so glad I did!

One of the many things I loved about Asylum was its choice of narrator. I found it very refreshing to see not only a guy narrating, but also a guy that loved knowledge and school in general. Too often we've been subjected to the typical "bad boy" and "misunderstood soul" characters that are so rampant in YA fiction. But in Asylum, the boys actually wanted to learn and were excited about it.

Another aspect I loved about this story was the build-up to the mystery behind the abandoned asylum. I thought it allowed for the pace of the book to speed up because I kept wondering what was going to happen next. I loved that the end surprised me, this is a big deal for me considering I spend a lot of my free time watching Criminal Minds and Castle and have developed a weird ability to figure out the end half way through. So the fact that I didn't figure it out is a plus for the author!

I also loved the characters, minor and main, because of the fact that they seemed real to me, Their reactions to certain situations were perfect and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion because of the dialogue and the chemistry between characters. This is one of my favourites from the summer! It is definitely a must read for all horror and mystery fans!

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1 comments

  1. I'm not one for horror movies either but for some reason I love scary books (go figure). So excited for Asylum so I'm glad to hear it lives up to its reputation

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