"A quick, entertaining and unsettling read that keeps the reader guessing right to the very end. Everything is interconnected and interwoven and Roux does a good job in keeping the reader guessing."
4 Stars
Pros: Quick, easy read/Definitely has a good, creepy,
unsettling vibe right off the bat/The mystery behind Daniel’s origins is
intriguing and telling, leaving the reader to wonder why it is he feels so
connected to this place.
Cons: The characters were pretty one dimensional, you run of
the mill, emotional teenager stereotypes but it didn’t take away from the book
too much/Daniel and Abby’s relationship felt forced and awkward
Full Review:
Similar to Ransom Riggs Peculiar Children Series, Roux uses
old photographs to help aid the reader in envisioning the surroundings. Though some
of these seem photo-shopped they still add to the creep factor of the novel
overall.
Daniel Crawford, shy, smart, socially awkward is attending a
Summer Course/College Prep for a month at a small College in New Hampshire. He
meets two people whom he befriends easily. Abby, the effervescent artist and
Jordan, the sarcastic, witty math whiz. There is, of course, a romance between
Daniel and Abby though it often times feels forced and awkward and frankly, unnecessary.
The college Campus of Camford is under renovations and so
they have the students staying in a building that was once an old mental
institution. And of course, the three amigos have to go exploring. They find
eerie photos of inhumane treatments being performed and though they are all
affected by them, it’s Daniel who really starts to feel different. Plagued by
nightmares wherein he’s sometimes the patient and sometimes the head
Doctor/Warden, he starts getting strange Emails regarding Patient 361 that
appear in his sent folder that he has no memory of sending and of course, his
computer crashes before he can send them.
After having done research on the history of the hospital he
comes to find that their most notorious patient, a man named Dennis Heimline
was a serial killer, known as the Sculptor. He would dissect his victims and
then post them in certain ways using ropes and wires. Dan becomes obsessed with
finding out more about the Sculptor and the more he digs the stranger his
dreams become. He begins getting threatening notes, blacking out with memories
of the Warden only to wake up and find that a hall monitor has been murdered. The
mysteries and horrors all start piling up and up until at the end it all comes
crashing down in a surprising turn of events.
The ending took the line between fantasy and reality and
completely erased it but it was acceptable. It, of course, left off for a
sequel and the true identity of the Sculptor seems obvious but Roux seems to
have a decent knack at keeping cards up her sleeve. I’ll read the next one to
see what happens because it was an interesting, entertaining read that had me
eager to sit down and find out what happened next.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes a good creep out
factor and likes to try to put the pieces of a puzzle together while they’re
reading a horror/mystery.
Comments
Post a Comment