Asylum
Madeleine Roux
$17.99, Hardcover
HarperCollins, 2013
978-0062220967
Genre: Horror
Age: 12+
Description: Sixteen-year-old Dan
Crawford is super excited when he gets to spend five weeks of his summer at the
New Hampshire College Prep course where he gets to immerse himself in his
scholarly pursuits among other fellow nerds and not feel bad about it at all! When
he arrives at the program he makes two new friends, Jordon, a math nerd, and
Abby, an artist. He also meets Felix, his “odd” roommate. He also discovers
that due to some renovations taking place in the normal dorm all the students
have to board in Brookline—an old asylum that closed in 1972. Felix informs Dan
that the old wing of the asylum is unlocked and he went looking around the old
warden’s office and found some creepy photos. Dan convinces Abby and Jordon to
go investigating with him. Soon creepy things are happening. Abby gets obsessed
with a photo of a young girl, not more than ten years old, who has a lobotomy scar
on her forehead; Jordon goes all A
Beautiful Mind on them with notepads full of complex mathematical
equations; and Dan starts receiving ominous notes. Soon an RA is murdered and another
friend attached and poor Dan thinks it is the work of a serial killer who was a
patient at Brookline who disappeared after it closed—a man who went by the name
The Sculptor.
Opinion: Unfortunately, this book seems to be getting
a lot of negative reviews. I am rather mixed. It has been compared to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
because of the incorporation of real asylum photos throughout the book. Here is
where I differ with most of the negative reviews—I was super excited for Miss Peregrine’s but once I read it I
was bored out of my mind and really didn’t think it was that great. With this
book, while the writing may not be the next big thing, I found myself reading
quickly and I was much more interested in the plot. Asylums are pretty creepy
things, so I was interested in the photos. Some negative reviews commented on
how the photos look doctored—if one reads the photo credits they will learn
that most of the photos are original and the only doctoring of them is such
minor things like putting a photo frame around a picture (because the photo in
the story was hanging on a wall) and things like that. I found most of the
images to reflect certain passages in the book; yes, there were some that kind
of made no sense. I do agree with some reviewers—I really wish there were more
photos included in the book. While some were creepy I would have liked to see
even more. I like how the author was able to really incorporate some of the
images, such as the name of the Warden (and readers see the faded office door
and get to fill in the blanks of the warden’s last name before it is revealed).
While the book’s pace moved quickly, there were some negatives. I was under the
impression that this would be a standalone title and while it does end on an
okay note there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of unanswered questions. For one,
Dan is adopted and we never get to know what his connection was to the sadistic
warden. Dan also supposedly was seeing a therapist because he was having
blackouts and memory problems. This is alluded to in the book when he can’t
really provide an alibi for himself when the RA is found murdered, but the
reasons behind this are never explained. Jordan’s weird A Beautiful Mind moment is never given an explanation—for a few
days he’s all crazy math dude and then the next he is back to normal. Abby also
seems to have an unhealthy obsession with thinking the lobotomized girl is
certainly her father’s sister who was committed to an insane hospital when she
was young. The actual ending is also kind of confusing but maybe it’s just me.
Without giving away too much, when Dan meets the person who has been
killing/hurting people it really isn’t clear if everyone is just acting crazy
because of the ominous nature of Brookline and its dark history or if the
person is possessed by a ghost . . . it’s just kind of confusing. If one is
just looking for a spooky story, I don’t think they will care all that much but
if one is interested in the how and why of such things it might be a bit of a
bug. Overall, it was a fast-paced, slightly creepy story that I don’t regret
reading. If there is a sequel, I hope there are more photos and questions
answered.
