“Sometimes, Dan, friends have to take a stand and say: Hey idiot, we’re here for you no matter what…we’re in this for the long haul. We’re in this for each other.” ~Abby (Asylum)
Genre: Horror (Mature YA)
Summary: For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, the New Hampshire College Prep program is the chance of a lifetime. Except that when Dan arrives, he finds that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline Dorm-formerly a psychiatric hospital. As Dan and his new friends Abby and Jordan start exploring Brookline’s twisty halls and hidden basement, they uncover disturbing secrets about what really went on there…secrets that link Dan and his friends to the asylum’s dark past. Because it terns out Brookline was no ordinary psych ward. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.
Featuring haunting found photographs from real asylums, this mind-bending reading experience blurs the lines between past and present, friendship and obsession, genius and insanity.
My Humble Opinion:
On the first level there’s the representation within the book. Dan has anxiety. He has a few other issues on top of it but he has crippling anxiety. As someone who has anxiety, this was incredibly validating and liberating. The author nailed it. True, anxiety is always going to have different effects on different people, but you can still get it right. Asylum gets it right.
Abby isn’t white which is wonderful. But at the same time I was kind of disappointed because while we are clearly told she is not white, her heritage is never explored. It’s almost implied that she is Native American, yet you can’t make that assumption based off the fact that she wears feathers in her hair-it’s a popular trend that girls of all cultures take part in.
Jordan is gay. He’s not confused, he’s not stupid, he’s a brilliant mathematician that thinks on his feet and winds up being one of the coolest characters. He is a jerk but he is not a jerk because he is gay-he is a jerk because his family is awful to him because he is gay and because he has a sarcastic personality in the first place that he uses as a defensive mechanism. I wished that he wasn’t the only representative for gays in the book because I have seen many situations where someone comes out and they have a wonderful family that accepts them. I understand this is not always the case and that what Jordan goes through in the book is tragically real to life. Still, he was the only gay and I felt like this implied that all families are like that when someone comes out.
The second level is the character dynamics. When you put these three together it’s really awesome. They each feed off of each other and while we have a very limited perspective because of what Dan experiences, we still have an understanding that these guys are a well oiled machine when they can figure out how they all fit together and learn to respect each other. There’s an element of romance, yet it’s not the whole story-romance is a part of life and even in the darkest of times, life goes on. The romance was realistic and best of all it was a respectful sort of thing. Dan never sexualizes Abby and he loves her because she is such a unique and intelligent person. He loves her for her personality first, and her attractiveness is just icing on the cake. For me this was another breath of fresh air.
Thirdly is how the following topics were handled: Anxiety (social and otherwise), sexuality, and insanity/asylums. Both anxiety and sexuality are represented and the characters are not crazy for it. They are individuals that are struggling with an aspect of themselves, yet they are not stupid or helpless. There are times where they certainly feel that way, yet they are shown (through either their own actions or the actions of others) that this is not the case.
On to the insanity and asylum which is, of course, the core of the book. This book is very subtle in its creepiness and it uses what we don’t know about the human psyche to really drive the creepy home. But what’s so wonderful is that the events that went on in the asylum were never glorified or sexualized. The monstrosities that happened are seen as just that. Monstrosities. The people that did them are not cool or looked up to-they are terrifying and looked down upon by everyone because their actions earned that kind of treatment. They have clearly shown that they are not sorry for their actions, nor do they want to change. And that was so refreshing to see. There is no justification, ever, in this book for the action of any bad guy. There is an understanding of what drives them, but it is never glorified and is only used to further show how awful these people are.
THIS BOOK ALSO HAS A CLIFF HANGER THAT NEARLY KILLED ME. WHO SAID IT WAS OK TO WRITE AN AMAZING BOOK AND END IT LIKE THAT? The ending really does cut off in the middle of the action, yet it didn’t feel cheap. And let me tell you that is hard to pull off. This book is incredibly well crafted considering the fact that it’s on the short side (just over 300 pages).
The horror from this book stems from the fact that people really can be terrifying when all is said and done. Even the best of us have a monster within. Is the monster insanity? Maybe, maybe not. But how can you know until it’s too late to escape it? This book isn’t so much of a “oh stuff happens to you” it’s a “stuff happens to you, you happen to you. What are you going to do about it?” This book is an outright challenge on how you perceive yourself and suggests that you don’t see yourself quite the way you really are. And to me, that’s what makes it scary.
TL;DR: This is a fantastic book! It brings on the creepy yet somehow manages to challenge readers in their views of the world and themselves while being encouraging. It’s very dark yet the evils are never glorified. If you know you can handle dark and creepy places and are looking for a book that will entertain you and make you think, check out Asylum.
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