Some Secrets Refuse to Stay Buried...

I wish I can say the book was as good as the tag line, but alas not so much.
Dan Crawford finds himself going to a summer program at a college that was an old asylum at one point. This asylum was said to have housed many dangerous criminals and those in need of psychiatric care. This is a typical old asylum: electric shock, lobotomies, and dusty old rooms filled with files on those patients that could not be saved.
I had high hopes for this novel because I read the description, and the pictures inside are actual photos of abandoned old asylums. So I thought it was a pretty cool concept. However, Asylum by Madeleine Roux was a waste and a disappointment.

The very first thing you notice is how completely clueless and awkward the main character is. Sometimes that is a good thing, but Dan just has something about him that makes you want to hug him, pat him gently on the shoulder, or just completely shake your head. You're not really sure what to do with him. Enter his two friends, Jordan: a gay rebel who hasn't told his parents he's even at this program, and Abby: typical artsy girl and (of course) Dan's love interest.
One of the things that confused me the most was the mood swings Abby and Jordan had. Halfway through the book the two of them just get angry and take turns huffing and puffing while leaving Dan in the dark. To say Dan is the most normal character in the book, or the most likeable anyway, is really something. Not a good something. The more characters enter, the more weird things get. And I don't think this "weird" was what the author was going for.
Abby, Jordan, and Dan have an obsession with going into the closed off corridor where the creepy psych patient's files are. So they meander in there a few things, each time Dan gets creeped out by notes left for him, pictures, his name even pops up on a few of the files.
Turns out, Dan is adopted (who knew) and he's a relative of the old warden of the asylum...shocker I know. So OF COURSE he's getting creepy flashbacks, weird messages, etc. But it's really hard to follow and not because the writing is complicated, just simply because I was unclear what the hell was going on. One minutes Dan receives a note that has a cryptic message on it, the next he has a weird flashback where he's on a gurney waiting to be operated on, and then he starts to see weird shadows. What. The. Hell.

People start to die, get injured, and panic. The cops all start to question Dan because he seems to always be in the area when these things happen. Abby finds out her Aunt was a patient in this old asylum, Jordan has his gay freak out about disappointing his parents...you get the picture.

I can say the ending came as a surprise, but I pretty much rushed through it because I just wanted it to end. Even with the ending I didn't feel any real closure to the book. There's a cliff hanger, but to be honest, I didn't really give a crap enough to even read the first page of the second book.  I think the author had a great idea and a really neat concept...but nothing is really explained. Plot points are unaddressed, characters enter and leave so quickly you are unsure who the hell they are, and the main theme itself is not something that keeps my attention. Roux could have done so much with the concept of the abandoned asylum turned college; she could have amplified her characters so they had more important roles and were easier to relate to; and for the love of God she could have explained key things that would have been VERY HELPFUL to have knowledge about.
Not a great read on this one. I am not deterring people from reading this, but I strongly recommend going in with the idea that you will be disappointed. It's too bad because the covers are cool and the overall idea behind the pictures and the plot were interesting. It's just disappointing.