Asylum (The Asylum Trilogy, #1) by Amy Cross

Asylum (The Asylum Trilogy, #1) Reviews

• 
  Natasha

  First off let me say I'll be posting this review under each book.
  
  As some people have griped about (especially on Amazon), this book DOES jump around quite a bit but as long as you read the chapter titles, you'll know whose POV you're reading about.
  People complain about books where you don't learn much about the main characters & then they complain when you DO actually learn a fair bit about the main characters.
  This book lets you know some back-story to the main characters & then lets you see their POV when certain things are happening.. Yes, this means there's some repetition to it, but it works for the story.
  For example (no, this isn't in the book).. You have Nurse Winter & Eddie eating lunch together & it's Nurse Winter's POV. She sees Morris walking down the hallway & sneers at him. Then in the next chapter you're reading Morris' POV & he's walking down the hallway, sees Nurse Winter & Eddie eating lunch & then sees her sneer at him & thinks she's a bitch. (If any of that made sense)
  
  These books draw you in & have you wanting to know whats going on. This is the first series (or book in general) that I've read in a LONG time where the entire story isn't predictable. Every time I though I had something figured out, I soon found out I was completely wrong!
  
  These books are twisted & disturbing. The main disturbing part of them is that some of the treatments of these patients used to happen awhile ago & most likely STILL do. Mental hospitals used to take advantage of their patients & do inhumane experiments on them because well, whose going to believe them?
  
  If you want to be left wondering what's going on until the very end, I highly suggest these books!
• 
  Phil

  Asylum consists of eight themed novellas with an added prologue all centered on an insane asylum in New England somewhere called Lakehurst. Old Asylums make for great creepy settings, and Cross mixes in some strange science, an old Nazi, a bit of bizarro with some great characters to keep the pages turning and the macabre factor on eleven. Most of the stories take place within a six month window or so, but Cross also takes us via flashbacks earlier times to flesh out the main character's backstories. Each chapter (or novella) switches the POV and we have some overlap with some events narrated from different POVs.
  
  Right off the bat we know there is something strange going on at Lakehurst as we follow the 'new girl', Annie, as she is admitted after killing her younger brother. Rumors are rife among the patients about ghosts and the 'special treatments' given out in the basement. The head nurse Winter basically runs the show and she is a real piece of work. Most of the stories highlight Annie, nurse Winter and other staff members rather than the patients as we slowly learn about the mysteries of the asylum. Besides the bizarre 'special treatment' section in the basement, which lets just say leaves a mark on the subjects, we have medical experiments gleaned from the old Nazi in the attic who conducted similar experiments in WWII, a variety of ghosts, hallucinations, sexual abuse and several characters who hear a voice in their head...
  
  Cross can really tell a tale and I liked the structure of Asylum, with each chapter often having a prologue and epilogue, that all feed into the main story. The creep factor starts on page one and builds throughout making for a great spooky read. This could use some better copyediting for sure, but I will definitely be back for more Cross! 4 eerie stars!!
• 
  Tom

  "Asylum" has always struck me as a funny word. If we are in a cruel, horrible country, we may be granted asylum in a less-horrible country. However, "an asylum" always brings to mind Nurse Ratched, too-bright fluorescent lights, and over-medicated patients shuffling around, mumbling to themselves.
  
  Lakehurst Psychiatric Hospital is definitely among the latter. It is ruled by the authoritarian Nurse Kirsten Winter, who was hired there right out of college. No patient has ever walked out of Lakehurst "cured." They are heavily medicated, and if they misbehave, they are taken to the basement for "special treatment," involving some sort of experimental, horrifying, electronic brain interface device.
  
  One day, Lakehurst receives its most-famous resident. Her name is Annie Radford. Annie is a teenaged girl living in rural Colorado with her parents, until one day, she takes her seven-year-old brother out in the woods and shoots him right through the forehead. Why? Simple: because God told her to.
  
  A few things about Lakehurst: patients and staff members seem to die frequently; ghosts of varying levels of scariness appear to patients and staff alike, and there are some strange experiments going on in the basement.
  
  Amy Cross's "Asylum: The Complete Series" contains all eight of the original books--most of them, 59 page novellas--in one 449pg volume. I can't imagine reading them separately, to be honest. Once I got started, I wanted to discover all of Lakehurst's mysteries, and uncover the truth about the evil that lurks there.
  
  I love the way "Asylum" is structured, too. It starts out with Annie's arrival at Lakehurst, and follows her acclimatization there. We meet the various characters as she does: the kindly-if-addled Dr Campbell, Eddie the sadistic guard, icily evil Nurse Winter, and kindly, sorta gay Nurse Catherine Perry. (Nurse Perry kisses and feels up Annie, but doesn't molest her or anything, once Annie says she doesn't want to play that way)
  
  We move back in time, seeing how Kirsten Winter was limping through nursing school, trying to rebuild her reputation after what seems to have been an alcohol- and sex-fueled period of notoriety (specifics are never given). One of her professors told Kirsten that Lakehurst would be the only place that would take her, but that she'd be a perfect fit; she is. We see her parents, now divorced; her father has remarried the perfect woman, and her mom lives in terrible squalor, alone and dying.
  
  At different points in the narrative we go back to the time when Annie's brother was missing for three days. After he was found unharmed, the family moved to a ridiculously isolated forest home, literally miles from anyone. Almost. Two days before Annie kills her brother, she meets a young man in the woods. His name is Kieran, and he's doing graduate-level research on abnormal AM radio frequencies. She agrees to meet him at 9pm. They spend the night in his tent, and Annie's all kinds of grounded when she gets home. We then learn what she saw and heard that led her to take her brother's life.
  
  So many things happen across so many years, that "Asylum" could be a horrible coleslaw of plot elements. Author Amy Cross avoids this nicely, though. If anything, many of these jumps really justify--or at least explain--the characters' later behavior. Everyone's path to Lakehurst was troubled, dogged by dark forces. Lakehurst is the epicenter of evil here, where things that can't be true, are, and things that can't happen, do. The question remains, is Lakehurst evil because of the people working there, especially the evil Übermensch living hidden in the attic? Or are they evil because Lakehurst is cursed? (I like the homophone in the hospital name: i.e., Lakehurst lay cursed.)
  
  "Asylum" is not a book you'll likely breeze through in one sitting. It has intricate plot and character machinations, and there are times where we aren't really sure whether certain things really happen. This isn't unreliable storytelling. Quite the contrary, the characters THEMSELVES can't be sure whether some things they see or hear are real: things that we and the characters witness occasionally turn out not to have happened. There is definitely a sinister force around Lakehurst, and it facilitates some perceptual oddities. Add in some already sinister people who come to work there, and the evil meter needle pegs. Lakehurst Psychiatric Hospital is a miserable place to live and to work.
  
  However, for a few night's fireside reading on a cold night, it's one hell of a place to visit.
  
  Highly Recommended.
• 
  Ian

  'Lunatics running the Asylum'
  
  Two reviews for the price of one:
  
  Review 1 - A story containing a host of great characters that reads very like 'One Flew over The Cuckoo's Nest' which then morphs into a 'Frankenstein' type horror story, with all the usual trimmings and delights.
  
  Review 2 - A horror adventure that reads directly like an analogy of the political landscape in the UK ranging from 2019 to the present day. Think Brexit, political Leaders and their Parties, division and a crazy kind of madness, all congealing to produce feelings of uncertainty, bewilderment and yes, perhaps hope, in the ongoing journey to realising the primary objective that has been promised. What is certain, good or bad, the future is most definitely yet to be written.
  
  Anyway, absolutely loved this easy read, gruesome horror story from start to finish, though I did think that aspects of the ending were just a little too ridiculously far-fetched which unfortunately detracted somewhat from the 'believability' angle and hence the ultimate reading experience as a whole. But was this deliberately done I wonder? After giving it some thought I decided to rate it 4.5 stars, but finally went for the 5 instead of 4 as I'm already eagerly looking forward to reading the second part of this awesomely wicked and, quite literally, mind-blowing trilogy.
  
  Highly recommended as thoroughly enjoyable.
  
  Rating: 5 stars...'Nurse Ratched, may I introduce Nurse Winter...I think you two may already be acquainted? Now let total insanity begin!'
• 
  Valerie (Howler_Puff)

  This would have got 5 stars if it wasn't for the ending. I have so many questions. Hopefully the second book will be just as good. This was such a good read. With the right amount of creepiness. I LOVED what was happening! I also likes how so many characters got their own chapter. It was done really well and was not confusing or hard to keep track. Definitely will be reading more by author.
• 
  Aniko Carmean

  The ASYLUM series by Amy Cross reminds me of writing workshops.
  
  This is not a good thing.
  
  As a paying reader, and not a workshop compatriot, I do not expect to be bludgeoned by incorrect punctuation, missing words and repetitive scenes. I resisted my workshopping urges, though, until the last third of the book. Frustration sent me to start marking the text, not only because the mistakes were ruining what could have been an interesting story, but because I wanted to see if maybe I was inflating the number of mistakes that a casual read caught. I was not. At one anguished point, I noted, "Bad editing is killing this book!"
  
  The worst thing about ASYLUM, though, is not the lack of editing. The worst thing is the wasted potential. Cross has fascinating and unique ideas, and created characters that had sparkling moments of pure interest. There are masterfully handled scenes, including one where a girl murders her seven year old brother, and another where a woman living in destitution is devoured from the inside out by insects. These glimpses of skill pulled me through the series, but ultimately, Cross loses her way with the thematic elements. There are starkly unexplained incidents, like a ghost who becomes a man who is then murdered for his brain, which is never used by the murderer. There are horrific slips of characterization, such as a man who lived off the land, following a tantalizing signal of broadcast brainwaves who, much later in the series, is duped into getting trapped in the asylum because he doesn't want to sleep one night outside in the rain. The point of view is shifted with such a lack of finesse, I was forced to backtrack in the text to figure out which character was narrating. All of those things are the mistakes of a new writer, and they aren't evil, but they do indicate a lack of impatience and a indelicate expectation of intelligent readers to endure writing that isn't ready for publication.
  
  I wish I had gotten to read ASYLUM in a workshop. I would have loved to watch it evolve into the amazing thing it could be. Cross has the imagination and the raw material to write enthralling books, either of which is far more rare to come by than craft competency. A workshop could do wonders for her writing, and I hope Cross takes the time to invest in developing the fundamentals necessary to relay the richness of her stories. Maybe then, I will be able to recommend you read one of her books.
• 
  Meeko

  WOW!! This book is freakiest scariest book I've ever read!! And gross. Each chapter freak me out. Last chapter was so crazy!! It was so too crazy that made me laugh out loud! You can't read with normal common sense and brain. Lots of nonsense and craziness happens in this book. I really like it! No I love it!!
• 
  Shainlock

  Just whoah.... strange, macabre, weird - and this is just number one.
• 
  Bojoura

  Very Very disturbing and I loved it☠👻
• 
  Billie

  I absolutely loved this series. It took a couple chapters to really get into the story, but once I did, I was hooked. It took two days for me to read the first book, but one day for the other seven. A definite page turner! I finished this novel almost a month ago and still think about it all the time. It reminded me of the TV show American Horror Story: Asylum. Although, I read this before the season started. I haven't started Ms. Cross's other works (I purchased them just after finishing this one), but I already feel like I found a new favorite author. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
  
  Writing: 4 stars
  Plot: 5 stars!
  Readability: 5 stars
  Age: Adults
  Highly Recommended
• 
  JaeRavenClaw

  I seriously want to cuss out this book soooo bad....but I wont. To its credit, it started off well, I was interested, I was reading more to know more, but by the end, it was just a mess. I really felt as though I needed to be in an asylum to put up with the nonsensical, full-of-holes, dont-bother-to-explain-the-reasoning story I ended up with. What the actual F?
• 
  Mollie Fredrickson

  DNF.
  I thought this was going to be a creepy ghost story, and it was but with way too much gritty unpleasant and uncomfortable extras. There was way too much POV from bad people. Maybe there was a twist in the end but I was way too triggered and uncomfortable to finish and find out. Disappointing.
• 
  Tammy K.

  Wow.
  
  
  
  This was one wild ride. Every time I got a lock on the story, the 'real' story was pushed further out. Like layers to an onion, I kept finding more beneath the previous stories.
  
  Without giving away any of the twists (and their are many twist in here) I will caution readers that this book is the compilation of eight mini-stories which told together make up a larger storyline.
  Readers need to pay attention to when the next book starts if they are not to fall behind.
  Also, if you want to figure this thriller out, you need to keep a mental notebook on the details that you learned in the previous books (chapters).
  When I got to the final pages, and seen how the stories dovetail together my mind was racing to pick up the pieces before the last line. So much so that after I finished, I sat in my living room staring out the window as my mind completed the piecing together of the story.
  
  
  
  While this is a good book, worthy of your time, there are a few minor glitches, some of which might be the difference between American English (me) vs British English (the author). :-)
  
• 
  Cheryl

  I'm not even sure what I just read.
  
  This book seriously struggles to define itself. The author is so wrapped up in trying to be as disturbing as possible, that she forgets about just writing a good story. There are no redeeming qualities to any of the characters. There's no one to cheer for. Every single character in this story (with the exception of one, that we only get about 10 pages of) is without the capacity to love or be loved. There is no humanness to this book.
  
  I'm even struggling to come up with a good enough review for the mess that is this book. My favorite genre of fiction is "horror/mystery/fantasy" (think Stephen King) - so I'm not new to reading about people killing other people. Or even people torturing other people. But this....this was an entirely different level. We are expected to believe that a psychiatric hospital that is used to treat patients that are sent over from the state, is never checked up on? No one ever cares to check on a single patient...ever?
  
  I read this whole book shaking my head and rolling my eyes. The ONLY reason I read it all is because I did want to know what thin excuse the author would use to pull it all together. And it was. Thin, I mean. Paper thin.
  
  And don't even get me started on the editing. Oy. This is the most poorly edited book I've read to date. And I've read a lot of books.
  
  Don't bother with this book, unless you LITERALLY have nothing else to read.
• 
  Brian Borgford

  I really liked this story. It was very creative both in the story line and in the way it was constructed. It definitely kept you guessing from chapter to chapter - what happens next - is it a ghost story? is it science fiction? The writing style was unique, using mainly the first person, present tense, but from the point of view of many different characters, and flipping to different time periods creating a non-linear tale. As others have pointed out, the final chapters take you in a direction you never would have guessed.
  
  I'm a patient reader, so I seldom use the term "page-turner", but as I got closer to the end, I did have a tough time putting down.
• 
  Hannah

  any of you who follow my reviews know that I love Amy Cross' stories. she is an amazing story teller. Asylum follows the style of her previous work in that it jumps between characters and time zones, which allows for much deeper story development and character understanding. As usual this is a no spoiler review, Asylum isn't as good as devils briar, but is easily on par with The Library and Mass extinction event once again Cross develops a story that allows you to almost put yourself into the world ( or should I say wards) of the asylum. if you like horror with a twist, try Amy Cross :)
• 
  Robbi Leah Freeman

  Again, horror novels I do on different scale then regular books. Amy Cross has pumped out many books. They are good/ great stories. They are also creepy, gory, haunted, violent, some sex but not much. I find myself at night looking around to make sure no one is there. Horror fans will love these. My biggest concern is she needs another editor. Books are filled with many errors. Errors aren't a huge deal but they do stop the flow of reading which can kill horror. Why 3 star books. Stories 4-5 star.
• 
  A.R.

  You have to stick with this one. At first, it seems like it's not going where it needs to go story-arc-wise, but in the end, all the pieces fit together--a brilliant, diabolical tale to haunt your nights.
• 
  Vicky Lelove

  Had it's moments but felt disjointed at times..
• 
  Kelly

  I'm not going to lie, this book is a mess. The plot is disjointed, the chapter orders are very badly placed and it definitely needed at least one more round of editing. In addition to all of that, there is not a single redeeming character in the story. Seriously, not one. Every character is either a hateful b*tch ( dear fellow members: save your breath in wanting to "call me out" for using misogynistic terms; I'm a woman and I own that sh*t. Plus, I'm probably older than you, so respect your elder! ) or stereotypical male w/Tarzan-like tendencies. And, to top it off, I guarantee you that you will forget this story the minute you step away from it.
  
  But...yes, I said but...you will still enjoy the ride because, ultimately, it's a fun story with an interesting concept. Just, you know, keep your expectations low.
• 
  Louise

  Please don't judge me...this really isn't my usual cup of tea...but it was cheap and well reviewed on Amazon and I was driving up my kindle ready for some time away....
  A asylum where all the staff are crazier than the patients (not that they mentioned too many of those that often).
  Everything was thrown into this one,a Nazi war criminal, sci-fi,a deranged nurse, unethical medical procedures, technology beyond comprehension and teenage romance...
  It was ludicrous....yet, it was far paced, fun to read and utterly ridiculously fun...with real moments of horror at some of the more lurid descriptions..
  I won't be rushing out to buy more like this, but it was a cheap thrill. :)
  
• 
  Roxie Prince

  Crazy interesting.
  
  This book is unique in a lot of ways. The way that it's formatted is unlike anything else I've ever read before, being the biggest one. It flips back and forth through time and POVs with a series of "prologs" that is quite interesting. I'm not sure where the author came up with such a format, but I suppose it works in this case.
  
  The story is engaging and suspenseful, if at times a bit unbelievable in its gore and surgical procedures. Still, it was a rather fun read, and I'm intrigued by what must go on in Amy Cross' mind to come up with such a tale. ;)
• 
  Michele Whitecotton

  I really enjoyed this series. As many have said, I liked being able to read all the books back to back. The plot jumped around a bit but I feel that gave more depth to the story. It wasn't confusing at all and you got to see a little bit of the past surrounding some of the key characters. I am facinated by old asylum's and I found the descriptions of Lakehurst and the "special treatment" to be very intriguing. This is the first I have read of Amy Cross but I will be seeking out her other works.
• 
  Shannon

  it is not often that I NOPE out (like literally, 4 books in my entire reading career, which is extensive), but a hundred pages in and I just can't....maybe someone can tell me what there is worth reading in the next few hundred pages, but when the Satan in her eyes thing came up, I was BEYOND done....repetitive, pushing off answers to just be annoying, under/over reactions for confusions sake I am guessing, because I can't tell where this is character development, ugh....i just can't
• 
  Julie Powell

  This book is seriously gruesome, scary, mysterious, clever and deeply psychologically thought provoking. I loved the way it switched characters and times, thus building an amazing and complex story.
  
  Each of the characters is intriguing - even those we don't really meet - and bring an interesting point of view to the tale.
  
  Extremely well written and highly recommended.
• 
  Laura Kenny

  It started off really interesting but by the mid to end it started to get a bit silly and dragged on somewhat. I did enjoy how it was split into different parts which told the story from different perspectives. The ending was intriguing so I will probably pick up the 2nd book in the series at some point.
• 
  Nicola Lee

  Good, but silly in places
  
  I read this book over a few days, it did keep me wanting to see where it was going and unable to put it down. But, once the end came it was a little silly, but I'm still glad it read it and will read the next........Meds.
• 
  Jennie Richmond

  “Everyone’s a monster to someone,”
  
  From the synopsis, it looks like the kind of book I love: dark, twisted, and disturbing, with sinister goings-on and a big eerie mental hospital as the setting. Normally this is followed by a really disappointing book HOWEVER Asylum was different.
  Right from the beginning I was hooked, I wanted to keep reading to find out why Annie committed such a despicable act. It unravels oh-so-slowly, but at a perfect pace.
  But not only did Asylum uncover Annie’s story, it delved into the background of other characters. It was so simple for me to become invested in their storylines too.
  I think I would have liked to find out a little more about what happened to Annie’s mother, as she was clearly mid-breakdown before ‘the incident’, and I hope it’s something that might be touched upon in the other books.
  The story is told through the eyes of the different characters of Lakehurst, flipping between past and present. I think normally I would struggle to read this kind of book as it’s often a bit difficult to bring it all together in my mind, but Cross managed to weave the viewpoints together to create a mesmerisingly haunted tale that just flowed, seemingly effortlessly.
  The end did kind of throw me a little, it seemed a tiny bit unrealistic while the rest of the book, although fictionalised, portrays things that are possible.
  Overall, though, I LOVED IT!
• 
  Masha

  After reading The Farm, I wanted to read more by Amy Cross so grabbed this one. I usually enjoy books and movies with mental asylums and psycho element, so this seemed intriguing.
  
  This story was absurd. Although it started in an interesting manner with the description of the patients and staff at the asylum and some mysterious experiments going on in the basement, I soon found it pretty hard to keep reading. However, I wanted to know the ending so kept going.
  
  The last 200 pages were a drag. Don’t really know why the ‘Jerry’ character was required. I ended up skipping a few of his entries because some just seemed unnecessary and were just adding to the page count. The ending was totally ridiculous! Couldn’t quite understand/ visualise the horror element in the story.
  I’m giving it three stars just for the first 300 pages or so. To be honest, it would’ve been just fine with some creepy experiments and evil doctors or maybe ghosts, no need for the insanely preposterous ending. I was going to read the sequel as well but the ending just put me off.