shayboote's reviews
2187 reviews

Asylum…let’s just start with the cover. The cover was spot on giving the reader the feeling that creepy secrets mixed with a hint of madness wait within. I think like many readers the cover draws me in and makes me want to read. The cover of Asylum, however, gave me an excited tingling in my brain that shouted read it, read it, read it.

I will be honest; I am forever in search of a good scare. I rarely, if ever. Find it. As my friends and family would say, I am beyond hard to scare. That aside, I can truly understand what scares other people and I know many that would be unable to finish this book on creepy factor alone. If you like tales of places like Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, Waverly Hill Sanatorium, or Danvers Lunatic Asylum this read will be right up your alley. What Madeleine Roux captured in the pages of this book was pure and creepy gold.

Daniel Crawford is insanely smart (pun intended) and a little weird so his acceptance into New Hampshire College Prep program or NHCP was no surprise. As he pulls up to the college his instincts all but bash him over the head telling him to turn tail and get as far from his new dorm as possible. The college was housing the summer program students in what used to be Brookline an old asylum that Dan would soon learn was more than just an ominous looking building.

Dan’s past experiences being the smart kid did not make him confident in the making friends area, but when a pretty girl wants to be your friend you’d be stupid to refuse. The connection between Abby her friend Jordan and Dan happens quickly and while something seems to pull them together, none of them are very forthcoming with information about experiences each of them began to have within the old psychiatric hospital’s walls.

Drawn to a picture left in the drawer of his dorm room desk, Dan is nudged by his roommate Felix to explore the off-limits offices that he found open upon his own arrival. Against all his good boy, boring, academic ways Dan tempts his new friends into exploring with him. Dan and Abby are pulled in by the clues they find to Brookline’s dark past but Jordan, not wanting trouble or to be the real life embodiment of a horror flick, would rather leave well enough alone. What ensues are the scary possibilities of Dan’s and Abby’s connections to Brookline itself and the few weeks within its walls that may drive the three friends to insanity.

Roux drew from a dark time in history when the monsters in the world were sadly the ones that were in charge of healing and helping. She created Brookline, a place like the famous House of Usher, that almost takes on its own scary living, breathing personality. If you like well written, creepy stories Madeleine Roux is your storyteller!

I have been a fan of Lisa McMann’s for a long time. My daughter and I shared the Wake, Fade, Gone series and went on to read the Visions series, but Dead To You kept getting pushed down on my reading list. As a mother the premise of the book was not a draw, maybe because of the real fears of a mother I remember from when my daughter was little, but I finally steeled myself to read it and I am glad I did, McMann’s approach and characters were remarkable.

Ethan met his parents for the second time in his life and he was sixteen years old. Abducted when he was just seven and missing for 9 years Ethan does not remember his life from before he was taken, worse is his crushing anxiety that hints at a much deeper mental illness that is only truly realized in the closing moments of the book. What he does remember is the woman who abducted him and her inability to care for him for most of his life. When she drops him off at Child Protective Services he believed she would be back. After enduring horrible treatment in the orphanage he runs away and lives on the streets until one-day sitting in the library he stumbles across a missing person picture of himself. Reunited with his family Ethan’s transition is anything but easy and is exacerbated even more by the anger and spitefulness of younger brother Blake. Ethan learns of the hardships his missing over the years has caused his family, but his mother’s devotion and love for him extended even to his anxiety is what you would expect of any mother. Even when faced with the possibility that Ethan is not what or who he seems his mother is determined to help him heal. McMann creates this broken family’s home in the harshness of a Minnesota winter. Minnesota and its unrelenting cold speaks to more than just a place and season, it sets the scene for the unrelenting questions surrounding Ethan, who took him, why he can’t remember, and his inability to control his anxiety. The story is slow and meticulous and riveting. It is emotionally charged, hopeful, and harsh.

When I finished this book I felt raw. Connecting the reader to the emotion of its characters, this book grips you and doesn’t let you go. The realistic look at the De Wilde family’s dynamic before and after Ethan’s return runs the reader through all the emotional trials and tribulations of this family and has the reader wondering how Ethan or his family will ever adjust. Suspenseful, emotional and devastating the abrupt ending to this story only adds to the jolt of this mental roller coaster coming to a crashing halt.