I picked up Asylum hoping for an enjoyable, frightening read that wouldn't take me long to get through—I didn't have time this past Halloween to devote to a long novel.

I was thoroughly disappointed.

The book is about a group of teenagers attending a summer college prep program in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, the standard housing is closed, so the students are moved to a former psychiatric hospital on campus. Of course, the dorm houses unsettling secrets that Dan, the lead, and his friends uncover, beginning with a series of haunting photographs.

The photographs were what drew me to pick up Asylum in the first place. I read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children last year and really enjoyed the juxtaposition of text with imagery. Asylum, unfortunately, didn't pull it off quite as well. Some of the images followed the story—those that were actually found by the characters as they explored the decrepit building. But a large number of images didn't seem to have anything to do with the plot. An image of a line of hospital beds, for instance, has no part in the story. I would have much preferred the photographs to really tie into the book.

I also wish that Madeleine Roux had incorporated more of the possession plotline. I'm glad that I wasn't exactly sure which characters were possessed, but I would have liked to see more of those that were obvious. On top of that, while I can understand the impetus to hold onto the few friendships you feel you've made when you're at what basically amounts to a summer camp, I wish we'd seen more of the friendship develop. I found it hard to believe that Dan, Abby, and Jordan became so close so quickly. After all, they hadn't met each other before the program. If we'd been given more insight into their interactions, I would have found their quick closeness more believable.

To its credit, Asylum does a very good job at being fit for a young adult audience. The main characters talk like they're sixteen, act like they're sixteen, and the writing feels like a teenager speaking to you. While this doesn't necessarily appeal to me, a twenty-six year old, I have to give Roux credit for being able to craft her narrative to really sound like the audience for which it's meant.

In the end, Asylum could have been improved in many ways. While I was overall interested in the storyline, the execution left much to be desired. I might pick up a Madeleine Roux book in the future, hoping that her writing has improved, but I will not be reading Sanctum, the next book in the series.