ASYLUM BY MADELEINE ROUX
Genre: YA, Horror, Paranormal
“It was a house for those who could not take care of themselves, for those who heard voices, who had strange thoughts and did strange things. The house was meant to keep them in. Once they came, they never left.”
― Madeleine Roux, Asylum
Series: Asylum Duology
Synopsis:
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.[Goodreads]

This book was definitely a creepy book. It was one that causes your imagination to work on overload as you slowly start to creepy yourself out about all the possibilities of what could happen. It has a dark ominous feel to it and the creepy pictures sprinkled throughout the book to help create that eerie atmosphere.
This book is about some kids who are attending a summer program at a college in New, Hampshire and the dorms are located in a building that use to be an asylum. You can just guess from that sentence that the book is bound to be filled with creepy and scary content. The main character Dan starts to uncover the history of the building and along with it he gets wrapped up in some of the workings and secrets that are held in the basement of the building. Roux weaves together a mysterious story that slowly comes together with a narrator that becomes unreliable.  The unreliability of the main character, Dan Crawford causes you to question his sanity and the facts of the story.
The characters seemed to not work all that well for me. Although I felt a connection due to the situation they were going through and have been in situations in which I have question my sanity because of things that were happening or what my imagination was doing to me. I also felt like the setting and story was something that was in the realm of reality. When I was in college we had a few buildings that were really old and had many ghost stories associated with them and when you had to go in them you always get this strange feeling and start to creep yourself out. Although I did enjoy that it was a male protagonist, Abby and Jordan were my favorite characters. They had great and quirky personalities that I really enjoyed. There was just something with the relationships , interactions and dialogue that wasn’t working for me and a little strange that I can’t exactly put my finger on.
Overall this was a spooky book that is perfect for the fall and Halloween time.The book was a easy and fast read that was layered with suspense making it captivating and gripping that I had to finish it and know what was happening. It is an eerie mystery horror story that plays with your mind and imagination. It gives you the feelings that many of us know so well of having our minds playing tricks on us and creeping us out imagining that they are things happening or there that are not. I would say that if you get scared easily, have an overactive imagination or live alone, don’t read this at night! I sure creeped myself out and had my mind making me think I was seeing things that were not there. It was a fantastic story that has the possibility of happening to you and your friends that makes it even creepier and a truly gripping book.