Asylum

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. On the scale of how good it was I'd give it a three out of five. I was first drawn to the book by the title, then the creepy pictures throughout, and finally the story summary. I haven't had any luck with finding a genuine teen horror story after reading The Merciless by Danielle Vega. It's like author find topics that are creepy or freaky, but the story itself is the opposite. That's how Asylum is.

Asylum is about a teenage boy, Daniel Crawford, who attends a summer college program in a renovated Asylum only to discover sinister secrets of its past.

Daniel, a.k.a Dan, is an interesting character. He's both you're typical teen boy with a sad family background. He's an adopted orphan, so he's used to being on his own and meeting new people. Except, he doesn't like being alone. He wants to make friends and have life long connections if the other person is willing. He also doesn't carry a chip on his shoulder like most stereotyped foster children. He's just a regular guy who isn't ashamed of his past. In the story, Dan meets Abby Valdez and Jordan (I can't remember for the life of me what Jordan's last name is or if he ever said it). Daniel is glad to meet them both because they become an instant trio, Abby being the one to glue them all together.

I will say, Dan is a much more interesting character to read about than Paige in Diary of a Haunting. At least Daniel doesn't call strange occurrences weird or super weird. He makes assumptions right on the spot and looks for logical reasoning like any person would in a spooky situation.

The reason why I don't love this book is because the story seems lacking. I'm still not sure why Jordan went on a rampage when Dan goes in his room and discovers dark secrets about Jordan. They're not dark enough secrets to think he's behind the bizarre and terrifying occurrences, but it's enough to question why he has been keeping pent up anger inside him for so long. It might be explained in book two, or it might just be forgotten.

I'm also not sure if the order of events works out in terms of suspense. [SPOILERS!!!] In order of events, Dan receives unusual notes and pictures, Dan, Abby, and Jordan discover an abandoned office with notes and images similar to the ones Dan receives, Dan receives or rather sees a sent message in his emails about a patient from Brookline, they gang returns to the office only to find a creepy passage way to a long hallway of a patient's quarters, Dan confronts Abby and Jordan about the notes and images, they don't believe him, he goes down to the basement for answers, comes back to hear someone has been killed, later he stumbles over a knocked out Yi (Jordan's roommate), and then finds Felix hurt from an unknown intruder. Now the reason I'm not too thrilled about this order is because someone being killed before the next victim is knocked unconscious simmers the tension in the story. It's more serious to go from someone being knocked out to someone being killed. Reversing the two wouldn't actually hurt the story, it would actually improve the flow. Because the supposed criminal killed someone, the next victim would have been killed too based on the person's willingness to kill anybody on their list.

The beginning of the story was a lot of character building and plot set-up. Very little happens except for Dan finding and eery picture in his bed and receiving strange notes and emails. Other than that, the story has a slow build. But, in a way, it allowed us to get to the know the characters in a casual way. Throughout this story, I thought I was reading a male version of Pretty Little Liars. There are mysteries to be solved, unexplained texts and emails, and the cops being against the main character's innocence. If there was a fourth character, it would definitely be new version of Pretty Little Liars.

I'm not sure if I'll read book two of this series. If I like the summary of the sequel, then I'll read it. Otherwise I know what I'm getting myself into with this author. Hopefully Madeleine Roux's other novels are better and more thrilling.

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