Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Goodreads Blurb

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.

So I was a bit wary starting in because of the mixed reviews I've been seeing and while Asylum wasn't exactly picture perfect, it was still a...decent read, I guess.

The beginning is absolutely creepy and chilling (It is not a good idea to read this at night alone in your house. I don't recommend it any time soon.) and I was enthralled, if not completely terrified, by the eerie descriptions and the ghostly writing. The pictures just doubled the creep factor and I absolutely loved it! But then, things sort of went downhill.

While the entire book did retain it's eerie atmosphere, the plot became dull about a quarter in. Almost nothing happened in the next two hundred pages(?) besides a few murders and...relationship problems. For a horror mystery, Asylum focused a lot on the awkward relationships formed throughout the story and the reveal was predictable. The last twenty pages were exciting, but they didn't really wrap up that many questions for me and I was still pretty confused on the worldbuilding and science of the story.

Our main character, Dan, was a flat character and he didn't have much of a personality. What character traits he did have were inconsistent and they changed to whatever the story line needed to progress (although by story line, I mean their relationship.) Jordan and Abby were pretty much the same and I honestly couldn't even begin to understand their actions.

The relationships were just as bad. For someone who was supposed to be antisocial, Dan made two best friends almost immediately and the romance between Abby and Dan seemed rushed and forced. Not to mention the relationships between all three of the characters were strained throughout the entire book and I had no idea how they could retain a relationship at all. What irritated me the most was that they'd just met each other and that they were so close, so quickly, and were nicknamed "The Hydra" in about a week.

While completely haunting and creepy, the rest of the book was pretty disappointing and confusing. It was sort of hard to understand everything that happened in the book and the characters were just flat and were pretty bland, besides the mysterious things that happened. I'm not quite sure if this is a series, but if it is, I don't think I'll be continuing it anytime.

Pages: 320

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Series: Asylum #1 (?)

Publisher: Harper Children's

Release Date: Aug 20, 2013

Rating: 2 stars