Sanctum: An Asylum Novel

In the sequel to Madeleine Roux’s Asylum, Dan and his friends find themselves haunted by memories of the insane institute at which they spent their previous summer. After eerie dreams, threatening notes, and remembering the horrors he faced, Dan realizes that the only way to get his life back is to return to the asylum and uncover the truth.

While Asylum was thrilling and intriguing despite the mediocre writing, Sanctum is awkward, disconnected, and moderately cheesy. The characters hardly develop throughout the course of the novel and their relationships lack emotional depth (and relevancy, for that matter). The photographs that are attached to different scenes in the story were, a majority of the time, unconvincing, and the so-called plot twists were predictable and unexciting. I enjoyed Asylum and thought its eeriness and eccentricity made up for the lack of good writing and development, but Sanctum fails to compensate for its downfalls. It is not boring by any standard and is a fairly entertaining read, which is why I am giving it 3 stars instead of fewer, but unless you were absolutely avid about Asylum, don’t waste your time with the rest of the series.