ASYLUM
ASYLUM
By Amy Cross
The Sexton’s musings (spoilers are likely):
This is the first book in a trilogy surrounding a character called Annie Radford. This first one is extensive. Honestly this is one of the longest Amy Cross books I've read or seen; however, It's for good reason. There is some cussing but not a whole lot and there are some sexual situations that involve language that may offend those of a softer nature. The start of the book was a smidge confusing but it all gets revealed in the end. There are some gory scenes but most of them are an “oh damn” moment that you almost overlook it. The reveal is not overly surprising but it really brings everything together. The story is told in first person through multiple characters. The story also has some time period changes, Amy Cross does this really well so don't worry about it being confusing.
Annie Radford
Annie is one of the main characters of this story but I feel like it follows Nurse Winter more closely. It seems that it is Annie that starts it all but really it's Nurse Winter that started hearing “the voice” first. The voice that told her to do self disparaging things. Annie's situation is different, she’s normal living a normal life. Until her brother Taylor gets kidnapped. Taylor is gone for three days and then just comes back unharmed. Their mother has some sort of mental break and makes the family move from their home to an isolated place out in the woods. They build this big glass house and they are essentially on house arrest. Their mother is trying to convince Taylor that he was taken by someone who molested him, but he keeps telling her that this was not the case and he has stuck to that story for a long time. These sessions go on for a long time. This woman is a fucking asshole. Listen to your kid, bitch! Stop trying to plant false memories into his head. Shit, why would you want your child to have those memories? Why would you force them on them when they are telling you that it never happened. She's bloody off her nut! Hell, she's doing more damage than the three days he was alone. This whole thing really pisses Annie off. She loves her brother ash you can see it. She is in her early 20's and she has never gone on a date, never gone drinking with friends. He life is not normal now because of her mother. Someone should introduce this bitch to Dr. Langheim. They would be two peas in a pod. He also likes planting ideas in peoples heads. He's method is more effective but I think they would have a lot to talk about. Annie meets Kiran who is the person studying the signal. They hit it off really well and in the end he finds the signal and saves the girl which is kind of cliche but you're really glad that they come out of it alive. I mean this is a duh since the last book in the series has Annie’s name in it but she could have ended up a ghost. There are many ghosts at Lakehurst after all.
Nurse Kirsten Winter
Wow you really hate her from the beginning. At first she tricks you into thinking she is someone else and then you find out that she we just feeling out Annie. She is such a bitch and everyone of the patients is frightened of her. She uses her “special treatment” as punishment for bad behavior. When we travel back to the late 90's we see her when she is just about to graduate from school with her nursing degree. She is a kind, intelligent young woman who really seems to give a shit about people. Right before she goes to Lakehurst she visits her parents. Her mother, who has early onset dementia, is living in filth and ends up getting her brain consumed by these little beetles. Her father, who has gotten remarried to a lovely woman, seems to be in much better shape. We learn later that he sexually abused Kirsten for most of her childhood and when he propositions her as she is leaving his home you know that this man is one sick fuck! Kirsten finds out that her stepmother is pregnant and she makes the decision to make sure that her father cannot hurt another child the way he hurt her. She kills him and her stepmother covers for her. She knows what kind of monster the man was. Despite all of this, after Kirsten first starts at Lakehurst she really does seem to care about the patients. She is not shy about voicing her issues with, for instance the surgical procedure that Langheim has them do on Julia and how it is not ethical. Julia was the first patient that was experimented on after Langheim arrived at Lakehurst. Kirsten saw him some in the dead of night. Under cover of darkness he is wheeled into the facility. Kirsten becomes corrupted after several incidents that, unbeknownst to her, are connected to Langheim and the voice that was in her head for years. The voice that was telling her to sleep with her teacher, killer her father (it was necessary) and her mother (it was mercy). The bitch she became was unfortunate but hopefully after she murdered Nurse Perry to save her own ass she is given a second chance. I just hope she uses it for the better. I suppose we shall see.
Dr. Campbell
This is the doctor that is head of Lakehurst when we first enter the building with Annie. He seems okay, even somewhat caring until you learn how complicit he is in what Dr. Langheim and Nurse Winter are doing. He seems to just turn a blind eye, probably for financial gain. He is risking his freedom by harboring a Nazi war criminal at his hospital so there has to be something in it for him other than medical innovations he can never be part of because he would be considered a Nazi sympathizer. Campbell ends up being killed by a patient named Mark. He is stabbed many times.
Dr. Alexander Lava
We don't see Dr. Lava for very long. He is Dr. Campbells successor. Nurse Winter is very butt hurt by this decision by the board . I suspect that if he were willing to look the other way when it came to her special project he may have lasted a little longer, but he was not willing to. He wanted to know what was going on in all aspects of the place, which he should being that he is in charge. You think that he is going to be a benevolent factor in this story but this dude is a monster! He seems to get off on physically punishing patients for not progressing the way he thinks that they should. If they do not do what he asks he escalates very quickly, so I'm not really sad to see him go after her gets snoopy.
Dr. Andrew Wylde
This is the man that is working on the “special treatment” project in the basement. This is the man that introduces Kirsten Winter to the final corruption that makes her a monster. It turns out that Nurse Winter has a bit of a crush on him until she learns his true nature and then he does not seem so hot anymore. In the end, she accidentally kills him when she pushes him away as he is trying to rape her. He ends up loosing his balance and hitting his head on her bed frame. Hitting it just the right way to kill him. I don't think she intended to kill him, but I don't think she was sad that he was gone.
Detective Scott Thompson
This poor man gets sucked into the madness of Lakehurst when several dead bodies are found in the basement. He is the unfortunate investigator assigned to the case. He ends up being tricked with sex by Nurse Winter and ends up dead in the end. Too bad he thought with the wrong head.
Dr Rudolf Langheim
This is the man behind it all. A man that in his heyday tortured innocent people in the name scientific advancement. This man is a Nazi war criminal that ends up hiding out in the attic of Lakehurst, continuing his work through the corrupt medical team at the facility. He is the voice in the head of Kirsten, Annie, Morris, and other patients. He has orchestrated the whole thing from his wheelchair with his own brainwaves. Brainwaves that he has sent out into the world and will remain in the world even when his physical body is dead. This dude has got to be upwards of 120 years old. He must have been experimenting on himself as well because there is no way he should still be alive. He can't even actually speak and resembles a dried out corpse, instead of a living person.
Morris the Janitor
This is a man with a past. A past that no one expects. He also is influenced by Langheim. The influence takes an interesting turn and he starts seeing a nun. I don't feel like he recognizes her at the time but it turns out that Morris had escaped the long arm of the law in Chicago by fleeing to Lakehurst. Morris was a pretty successful serial rapist and mass murderer in Chicago when he was a bit younger. Turns out that the nurse that is appearing to him was one of the first women he had ever murdered. No one at Lakehurst knows his background. They just think he is an old man that cleans up body fluids and fixes sinks. He is so much more, and is influenced to burn Lakehurst to the ground by overloading the boiler. Ultimately he is talked into suicide.
Jerry the Tech Guru
Poor Jerry. He was born at Lakehurst to Julia, the brain in a jar. He wants nothing more than to just speak with his mother. He has never been outside Lakehurst. He was raised by the doctors and has never stepped foot outside. We find out later in the story that he is the product of Dr. Campbell having inappropriate relations with his female patients. Does Jerry participate in the “special treatment” project, yes. Does he really know any better, nope. He has learned everything from the corruption at Lakehurst. He is just doing what he knows. Although this said he does seem to know the difference between right and wrong. He has no interest in killing people. His main goal was to speak with his mother. He sort of achieves this but not in the way he was hoping. Then he gets bludgeoned to death by Morris with a hammer. This really sucks because he was going to break out into the world. Take some of the innovations that have been created there and try and do some good with them. He never gets that chance.
Kieran Evans
This is the person that we meet at the very beginning of the story. We don't know who the person is at the time but it all ends up making sense. He's a good guy. His area of research allows him to be open minded about the incident with Annie and her brother Taylor. For him, her story is not so far fetched considering he has been studying the signal that was attached to what she did for a year. If you don't understand what the hell is going on in that first prologue don't worry, eventually it will, mostly, all make sense. I just hope that he is genuine and there is not a twist on his character in the next book.
Nurse Hazel Perry
This young woman does not seem like she is going to play a big role in the story when you first meet her ( there is some miss typed name errors for her in the beginning. She is called Nurse Kelly too which is incorrect.) and even mid-story but she has a huge role by the end. She is a sweet person. Even though she is very much part of Nurse Winters program she maybe one of the only people who legitimately gives a shit about the patients. She also is one of those characters that there are things surrounding her that don't seem to make sense at the time. Turns out that she was part of Langheim's experiments early on and she is able to regenerate. This is why when she and Annie have the altercation in the car and they crash that she survives. It seems she can survive anything, well, short of what happens to her at the end.
Closing thoughts:
An interesting start to the trilogy. While it will leave you hanging with some questions I'd say it's definitely an original story. There are some adult situations and some strong language. References to Nazi experimentation as well as moments of violence against children (nothing extensive but a 7 year old gets shot so...). The end makes you want to move on to the next book for sure.
