Asylum
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Asylum Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Madeleine Roux (Author), Michael Goldstrom (Narrator), HarperAudio (Publisher)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 3,564 ratings
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Once you get in, there's no getting out.

For 16-year-old Dan Crawford, a summer program for gifted students is the chance of a lifetime. No one else at his high school gets his weird fascinations with history and science, but at the New Hampshire College Prep program, such quirks are all but required.

Dan arrives to find 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 here - secrets that link Dan and his friends to the asylum's dark past. Because it turns out Brookline was no ordinary psych ward. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

This mind-bending listening experience blurs the lines between past and present, friendship and obsession, genius and insanity.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    6 hours and 43 minutes
  2. Author
    Madeleine Roux
  3. Narrator
    Michael Goldstrom
  4. Audible release date
    August 20, 2013
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    HarperAudio
  7. ASIN
    B00E7SE58Y
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 6 hours and 43 minutes
Author Madeleine Roux
Narrator Michael Goldstrom
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date August 20, 2013
Publisher HarperAudio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B00E7SE58Y
Best Sellers Rank #52,866 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#150 in Teen & Young Adult Art
#218 in Mysteries for Children
#667 in Teen & Young Adult Mysteries & Detective Stories

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
3,564 global ratings
I LOVED IT!
5 Stars
I LOVED IT!
**SPOLIERS**Where to start. Haunting, fun, page turner for sure. It gives you a creepy feel from beginning to the end. I personally couldn’t put it down. I’m the type of person who wants to know what happens next so 3am in the morning and I’m still reading this haha!I love how the characters all connect in a certain way with how they’re family from the past is somehow connected to the Asylum leading them throughout the novel to new places and finding new evidence. Half the time the novel kept me saying in the back of my mind, “don’t go in there!” “why are you going in there” “oh, don’t trust that person” “wait, what did I just read?”Every chapter added a new adventure. And that’s personally what I like about reading books. If they can take you on the adventure with just picturing the surroundings then you know it’s going to be a good book you can’t put down.I hope this series continues being a page turner. With a scare here and there. I loved it!!My Email:Inwonderlandreading@gmail.com
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Top reviews from the United States

Angel_of_Silence
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic read for teens and adults.
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2015
Verified Purchase
If you like reading books by Dan Poblocki and books such as F. E. Higgins "Tales of the Sinister city" series, then this is going to be a great read for you. The pictures are neat and add a really nice touch to making the book scary, and I found the writing to be clean and easy to follow. Some may not like the simplicity of the writing style, but be reminded this is a young adult book. If you're looking for something heaver I'd suggest the adult thriller/horror section. For me, this book was perfect. There was even a moment where I closed the book saying, "Nope. Nope. Time for a coffee," because of a particular moment in which our main character gets one really disturbing note. I explained what had happened to my husband (who was curious about my outburst), and now he wants to read the book.

The book is about these 3 high school students who attend a prep program for gifted children who become friends. However, it turns out 2 of them may have deeper ties to the asylum-turned-dorm than they could have ever imagined. Add a serial killer, ghosts, people being possessed, and the slight possibility of reincarnation, and you've got yourself a great and thrilling read.

I really recommend this book for people and kids who like a scary read. It's a lot of fun, and I look forward to reading the next two books in my kindle. Fantastic read for teens and adults alike.
6 people found this helpful
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Marcia Blackwood
4.0 out of 5 stars Not true horror but still entertaining
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2016
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Pretty good for YA fiction, but I agree with other reviewers that it's not as engrossing as the PR seems to indicate and benefits a great deal from the haunting included photos from actual asylums. What's confusing about the photos is that many taken from historical shots are more there for atmosphere than direct links to the story, as opposed to the images that clearly derive from the narrative. If I have after-effects, it'll be from the images. They tend to inspire (If that's the right word) their own haunting tales of isolation, desolation and the dim places where the walls still speak of tragedy.

But Asylum is definitely well-written and engaging and makes for a fast read. I'll be reading the other books as well, but the text likely won't keep you up at night if you're older like I am. Or that's my impression. If you've read Stephen King, for example, Roux is not nearly as disturbing and doesn't have the sense of palpitating rhythm King does (but few do). There's also not the truly twisted sense of humans Gone Wrong that makes stories of ghosts and vampires pale in comparison, as far as acts of raw, inexplicable evil. But Roux's writing is also less terrifying, making Asylum a book that will entertain and spook you some without resulting in a few sleepless nights.

If you like YA ghost fiction with aspects of horror, Richard Pack's Blossom Culp (Ghosts I Have Been) books are classics; if you like being freaked out by deft combos of physical and psychological horror, try Something Wicked This Way Comes or the more modern Turtle Boy (Timmy Quinn series). Both, however, will stay with you after. So will Coraline, which kids find fun and adults have nightmares from, interestingly. Netflix's Stranger Things has something of Asylum's vibe, though the psychological imagery is frankly more haunting for its fantastical evocativeness.

Roux is good but not great, and her possession dialogue feels a bit forced at times, and a bit chuckling villain at one point late in the story. It's also not hard to figure out who's doing what, but this is less a mystery than an exploration of how family history can unbury itself and cause an otherwise stable person to question his sanity. But this was still an enjoyable read and didn't have plot breakdowns that a lot of horror has, where you feel as if the characters check their brains at the door on occasion because the plot needs to move forward. There are also enough questions left at the end of the book to make you want to delve more into the story.
8 people found this helpful
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Scott E. High
3.0 out of 5 stars "In A Mad World Only The Mad Are Sane"
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2016
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This is not a book just for young adults! Although the main characters are all balancing on the precipice of leaping from high school to college, anyone who has made that interesting radical change in lifestyle will be able to identify with them. In this story three gifted high school students meet at a summer pre-college program targeted to their intellect. All of them carry their "geekness" into the program and manage to blend together in spite of their differing appearances and personalities. They learned to hide their quirks in high school by wearing certain costumes and assuming specific mannerisms, but it doesn't take the three of them long to discover that they deeply care for each other.

The main antagonist in this story is Brookline, a shuttered psychiatric hospital turned into a dormitory for students attending summer courses at the college. It turns out that Brookline is an old, crumbling, and imposing building that not even a fresh coat of paint and extensive landscaping can improve. It is now on the state's list of historical sites and will be preserved in all of its present ugliness. Brookline is one of the "old school" asylums where unmentionable experiments were conducted on patients deemed to be incurable, an old and dark building of secrets too horrific to once again see the light of day. An initial short exploration of an "off limits" section by our three geeks yields some interesting clues to the past worth investigating. And so the story begins.

Madeleine Roux has written an interesting thriller that draws you in as soon as you see the book cover. On the dark cover stands a young lady slightly out of focus who looks like she might be moving in the whirling dervish motions currently favored in horror films. The end papers are black, the interior pages feature several black and white photos of actual asylums, and the chapter markings are all dark and dreary. The book's cover is extremely well done and draws you to it like a magnet. All of the interior photos reinforce the readers' perception of what insane asylums actually look like, complete with pictures of patients, staff, and operating theater. All-in-all a great marketing package.

While the book is listed at being 320 pages long, the actual story is double-spaced and actually occupies about 242 pages. The rest is photos, chapter markers, acknowledgements, and indices. While is is a pretty quick read, the additional inclusions help to reinforce the atmosphere of the story. The writing is pretty tight and moves along nicely, but things get a little bit off balance and busy at the end. A great build up somehow manages to turn into a somewhat messy ending. And that's really too bad.
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Dhearya
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
Reviewed in India on May 1, 2023
Verified Purchase
This book is awasome, it has horror,friendship love and suspension. There is never s moment i though that book is just draging thinks out its perfect
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Michelle
5.0 out of 5 stars Great story
Reviewed in Canada on August 13, 2018
Verified Purchase
Terrific writing , great story .cant wait to read this authors continuation of this drama .
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Joce C
5.0 out of 5 stars El libro muy bueno y el envío por igual.
Reviewed in Mexico on May 9, 2017
Verified Purchase
El producto es tal cual se describe, se vende a un precio muy justo y acorde, lo recomiendo bastante si gustan de libros de terror y misterio.
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Jay Fallen
3.0 out of 5 stars Weak
Reviewed in Brazil on January 15, 2017
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That's so weak plot, even drama, characters are unbeliavable.
O vilão final é previsível, mas digo que as fotos são interessantes, só isso.
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Pageturner 20
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but still underwhelming
Reviewed in Germany on April 3, 2017
Verified Purchase
I've had this book on my TBR for years! I recently decided to get through my Goodreads Backlog TBR by reading at least one book per month that has been on the TBR for years now! I am a sucker for horror done well and I was really excited for this book because it looked extremely promising! However, whilst it was enjoyable in its own way, I was still left feeling vaguely underwhelmed.

I was excited about the asylum aspect of this book! I think that old asylums are morbidly fascinating and I was looking forward to having photos of real asylums and history accompanying the story. Whilst it did add a little bout of uniqueness, I felt like it didn't flow as well as it should have with the photos and the story and I think maybe it would have been better had the photos been sharper and on a glossy paper!

I liked the mystery behind Brookline and the past surrounding it! I wanted to know more about the old warden and what made him so infamous with the residents of the town! I also liked the coincidences with Dan, Abby and Jordan and I am looking forward to finding out more about them and the way their stories/pasts interlink in the rest of the series.

I also really like the character dynamics within this story. I loved the awkwardness of starting to get to know one another and the struggles to keep the friendship with the pressure they're facing with things that have happened in everyday life and in the past (in the sense with the asylum). They had their ups and downs and I loved the fact that they were like everyday friends that would find in normal life. They argued and didn't always agree, but, at the end of the day, they were still there for each other.

Whilst I did enjoy the mystery and the character dynamic, I was disappointed by the fact that I wasn't creeped out... at all. I was looking forward to reading something that would have me thinking psychologically, stuck with the lights on, but I didn't get that from this book. I'm not sure if this is because I am not particularly easy to scare - but I definitely felt like this was missing from the book!

All in all, this was an interesting, but underwhelming book. I enjoyed the storyline and the mystery behind Brookline and what links the characters to the old asylum and I am looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Sanctum. I gave this book 3/5 stars.
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