My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Gallery Books for an advanced copy of this historical graphic novel.

Back in the day when crusading spunky young women trying to make their way in the world wasn't a trope for a lot of streaming series on Netflix, Nellie Bly was the most crusading, spunkiest women reporters in the City of New York. Before it became de rigueur for reporters to save their biggest stories for the pricey book deals, Nellie Bly did stories that changed things. Divorce law, women factory workers, even travelling the world in 72 to prove it could be done, and to learn more about it. Her biggest and her best story would be the time she went undercover to discover the treatment of people society declared either lunatics or untreatable, including spending ten days in New York's most infamous asylum.

Writer Brad Ricca and illustrator Courtney Sieh have adapted Nellie Bly's 1888 book Ten Days in a Mad-House into graphic novel form. The book starts with Ms. Bly after arriving in New York in hopes of gaining a reporter's job at one of the many newspapers. After impressing an editor at Joseph Pulitzer's publication, Nellie is given her first assignment, report on conditions for patients at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island. Sadly she finds it not that hard to go undercover as a patient, being a woman seems to be a major symptom for most doctors and soon she finds herself on the island. Conditions are horrid with poor food, ill trained staff, not enough bedding or blankets and Doctors who seem to be above it all and Nurses who seem like oppressors more than healers.

The story is adapted well and quite beautiful to look at. All the characters inmates, doctors, and others are all distinctive and don't appear just to say a few words and disappear like a Broadway play. The writing is good, using many of Ms. Bly's words and tells the story clearly and with a lot of feeling for the characters and the situation, never sensational but factual. The art is strong and again clear, with a lot of subtle hints in each panel that gives the characters a distinctiveness, with a a good use of panels to tell the story.

Nellie Bly was an inspiring character who accomplished quite a lot. This graphic novel rally captures well what she did for the women, many who were cast aside for being foreign, difficult or just being women. Graphic novels are a great tool for learning more about the world an the people who have tried to make a difference. I look forward to reading more by both creators.

This graphic novel was interesting. The storyline was not what I was initially expecting but the pay off was worth it. And the illustrations were beautifully done,

This was a wonderful graphic adaptation of Ten Days in a Mad-House. It was brief enough that it didn't drag but also gave us just enough of all of the horrible things Nellie Bly experienced. I loved the illustrations and felt like they really lent to the time period the book is set in as well.

Excited to recommend this one! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this early!

This was an excellent adaptation of a chilling story. It covered all the main points of the story of Nelly Bly getting herself committed in order to expose the conditions inside a mental institution. The contrast of Nelly's self-assured, composed inner voice and the illustrations of the women she was with and the conditions they faced was very powerful. I also loved how her self-confidence and self-assuredness deteriorated the longer she remained inside.

The illustrations were haunting. The black-and-white pen-strokes conveyed texture and detail and a chilling atmosphere. The way the women's faces were rendered were also very powerful and haunting.

When I finished reading I discovered that I was tense and chilled -- the story affected me quite strongly. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know about how mental institutions used to be, but also with the caveat that while the story moves along quickly and is compelling, it will stay with you.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing an e-arc for review.

I've always been fascinated by Nellie Bly and the story of her going undercover on Blackwell Island to investigate how women were treated there. When I saw that there was a graphic adaptation of her famous work Ten Days in a Mad-House, I was intrigued and interested to know how this dark report would work in a more artistic format.

Fortunately, this book was extremely well done! The art style is very distinctive and conveyed a gloomy, chilly mood throughout. It helped the book have more of an emotional impact. Many of the characters in the art look quite similar, so you need to read the text to fully tell them apart, but I believe this contributed to the overall message- the women were not treated as individuals, but rather they blended together into one group.

The content is horrifying and the depiction of abuse is really difficult to stomach, but the actual book itself was very readable and accessible. It is a good version to read if you want to understand what Nellie Bly went through and discovered but you are intimidated by the original text (or simply want to experience it in a new format).

I was impressed by this book and would recommend it to people interested in the topic!

Note: There are some pretty big triggers in this book for ableism and many types of physical and mental abuse.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this ARC to review!

I've never read the original version of Ten Days in a Mad-House, but after reading this adaptation, I'd be open to doing so — only once I recover from the massive amounts of rage and hurt that welled up within me while reading this book. As a woman who faces my own mental health obstacles (and quite a few of them if we're being frank here), there are few things that truly rattle me quite like looking into the past and coming to terms with how I and so many of my loved ones might have been treated, had we only been born a hundred years earlier.

Ten Days in a Mad-House follows Nellie's secret integration into a mental health hospital (though I'm not sure if "hospital" is the right term here, given that it implies some sort of actual care) in order to expose the terrible living conditions of the women therein. She tells not only of abusive staff and horrible treatment practices, but she also dwells a lot on how many women who were trapped there seemed to not need any sort of medical intervention in the first place. (On one hand, I think the added attention to how "sane" some of these women were discounted the fact that nobody, regardless of their mental state, deserved these treatments; on the other hand, Nellie's extra details here may very well have helped everyone across the board, as I can unfortunately very easily imagine a jury being more stricken with empathy for some patients than others.)

All in all, there's probably a bit to be said about Nellie's motives and the ethics behind how she carried out her research, but it's important to note that she made a big impact on the treatment of patients and blew the cover off of a massively disgusting practice (which would continue to be terrible for many decades to come, regardless, but I have to think it was somehow improved by Nellie's works). I appreciate the fact that the creators responsible for adapting this work even mentioned in the afterword how important it is to consider both the intent and impact here.

And finally, speaking of the book as an adaptation itself, while I haven't read the source material, I found the graphic novel to stand on its own incredibly well. The art was well-done, the dialogue and story were easy to follow, and I found it overall very informative and enjoyable (albeit emotionally difficult). I highly recommend it, whether you're new to Ten Days in a Mad-House or looking to experience it again in a new, fresh way.

✨ Content warnings for: severe ableism, misogyny, abuse, attempted drowning, starvation, forced exposure to cold and implied hypothermia, death, forced medications, imprisonment

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

What made this reporter so astonishing is the fact that she was one of the few female reporters in the early 18th- century and that she volunteered to be admitted as insane to find the truth.

Nellie Bly wanted to work for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, and the editor of course had no interest in hiring a female. So he told her there was a story they wanted about Blackwell Asylum but had no one willing to go in and find it. He was shocked when she volunteered to have herself committed, declared insane, and bring back the story.

It was amazingly easy to have that happen. The doctors barely looked at her or did any real diagnosis. But she was a female, on her own, acting what they considered strange. That was all it took back then, being mentally ill was an opinion more than a diagnosis.

While there, Bly saw for herself that the system was more than just damaged, it was broken. There were women who did need the help but were left to just sit and stare, there were women whose crimes were simply they did not speak English. They were under-fed, barely clothes while left with no heat freezing, they were beaten and abused for any small infraction or just because the nurse wanted to.

She began the conversation on the treatment of the mentally ill, as well as an examination of what was mental illness.

We still have so far to go on the treatment and understanding of those who suffer, and it has not been that long since Asylums were closed and patients were treated with more humanity. But thanks to this brave reporter, Nellie Bly, the change was started.

Well-written, well-drawn graphic novel. I’m glad Mr. Ricca got the chance to make this important adaptation of Nellie Bly’s own story.

Thanks to @Netgalley, Gallery Books, Gallery 13, and Brad Ricca for this eArc in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

I've been interested in Nellie Bly's time in the insane asylum for years now, ever since I heard of her heroic time there as she was investigating the conditions. She was tasked with investigating the conditions and checked in as a patient. But what makes someone mad?

During this very dark time, many women were turned over to asylums for small reasons. They had a fit and showed anger, some were pregnant or had inheritances that men of the family would send them away so they would inherit. It's still deeply disturbing, both how women were treated then and how we are treated now, to show in detail the injustices and liberties taken with women as they were seen as the weaker sex. The writer does a wonderful job really highlighting the more important parts of Nellie's report. The illustrator's art is both mesmerizing and disturbing to look at.

This graphic novel really adds another layer to her account.
There is something very unsettling about the book to see this horrors of the patients there instead of only reading Bly's account at the time. I really liked the how the tone and the plot moved quickly, Nellie always being on guard and suspicious. The nurses were terrifying.
Overall, it's a great representation of Bly's time in the mad house but also a solid work of art.

This was a hard read. I have always been interested in the Nellie Bly story - but this one was very hard to follow without fully relying on the photos to guess what was happening. I won't be purchasing a physical copy of this one.

I received a free ARC through NetGalley for my honest review.

When I was thirteen, I went with a school group to the Newseum, the museum of news (RIP). We watched one of those 4-D movies you sometimes experience at theme parks - and apparently museums. I can't remember all of it, but I do remember the Nellie Bly part. We were sprayed in the face with water during her ferry crossing. We felt rats against our ankles. There were probably some smells, but it's been about 15 years now.

I've never actually read anything by Ms. Bly, but when given the opportunity to experience her work as a graphic novel of course I couldn't resist. And I was not disappointed.

First off, the art clearly emulates the wood engraving of the time that were used to reproduce photography in newspapers in the late 19th century. It's black and white and grainy, and looks like it would take hours to execute. I love it, you feel immediately immersed in the era.

The story itself was familiar - intrepid young journalist Nelly Bly takes on the assignment of getting committed to Blackwell Island's Women's Lunatic Asylum. She does this by getting first checking into a boardinghouse for women, acting like paranoid, and getting brought before a judge, several doctors, the head of Bellevue, and soon she was on the ferry. Once at Blackwell, she experiences the disgusting conditions - a severe lack of resources like clothing, bedding, and nutritious food, unclean living conditions, but most of all, the repugnant and cruel behavior at the hands of the nurses. I won't go into all the details, but these women were clearly everyday sadists who relished having power over others. And subsequently, they used that power to brutalize the women they were supposed to care for in a variety of ways. From things as small as cruel nicknames to as horrifying as physical beatings.

The women at Blackwell were the most vulnerable - poor, sometimes immigrants whose only sign of "mental illness" was being unable to speak English, women who suffered various disabilities. Bly outright says she believes many to be mentally fit and implies that many others have had their minds broken but the conditions at the asylum. What she witnesses at the hands of cruel nurses and inept doctors is chilling, but no doubt a reflection of what occurred at many similar institutions across the country.

Anyways, this was such a fascinating read that translated Nelly's words into a vivid reality. It was both enlightening and maddening - one can only imagine what Ms. Bly herself felt as she gathering information for what was sure to be a juicy scoop while also witnessing her fellow patients being brutalized and neglected. This might be a difficult read for some, but it's so necessary. While many areas of mental health care have vastly improved, the atrocities experienced by the victims of Blackwell aren't completely erased. We still have those suffering under inadequate care with no one advocating. The illustrators did a wonderful job translating a very important piece of 19th century journalism into a highly relatable and readable graphic novel.

Nellie Bly was an intrepid reporter when women were more known for being looked at than heard. What great courage it took to put herself in a mental institution!

Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh team up for a great graphic novel that will inspire girls of all ages to speak their truth. This is so much more accessible than the original source material from Bly.

5.0/5

What a ride! This graphic novel is about Nellie Bly and her time undercover in an asylum. I don’t think a lot of people know this history and what Nellie Bly brought to light in her time.

Women and how they were sent and treated in these places for reasons that are normal for everyone now, but were “crazy” back then.

Some of the book was a slog, but I loved the art work in this graphic novel!

3 stars

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC of this book!
I really enjoyed the way this comic was set up. It does a great job of conveying the message of the work it is based on. That being said, sometimes it felt like the character designs were a little too similar and it was hard to discern exactly which woman was featured in that panel. Overall, I liked this one!

Truly incredible pairing of Nellie Bly news report detailing her time spent in Blackwell Asylum with historically accurate black and white illustrations. Very powerful and chilling read.

For those who have never read the original news story, this graphic novel depicts the sad circumstances of those living in asylums at the time. And sadly, many things have not changed. The mistreatment of many who are deemed different is still an issue we are dealing with today. A great story and a future classic.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Ten Days in a Mad-House.

I was excited to see Ten Days in a Mad-House in a graphic novel format, especially for a Kindle, so I was very pleased when my request was approved.

Sadly, the text came out garbled and completely unreadable. The illustrations are great, and from what I can gather, graphically portray Nellie's harrowing ten days at Blackwell's Ayslum.

Nellie Bly was a fierce, courageous and inspirational journalist, and this graphic novel brings to visual life her tumultuous two week stay at a place she, and many other women, did not belong.

I just wished I could read it.

I have the original 'Ten Days in a Mad-House' but have yet to read it, so I jumped at the chance to read a graphic novel adaptation. I really enjoyed the detailed illustrations and it really brought to life her report. Nellie was so incredibly brave and she is such an important figure in Women's history for her work.

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly and adapted by Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh is an amazing graphic novel adaptation of the original investigation into the Blackwell Asylum. The story revolves around Nelly Bly, who conducted an undercover investigation into Women's Asylum on Blackwell Island. She tricked the doctors into thinking she was crazy and was committed to 10 days in the asylum. Bly found horrible conditions, cruel staff, and worst of all, many of the women there did not have any mental disorders.

Overall, Ten Days in a Mad-House is a grim wonder of a graphic novel. Reading it, I was simultaneously entranced and horrified. I could not believe what I reading! One highlight of this book is the amazing story that was originally investigated by Nellie Bly. Before reading this book, I had actually not heard of Blackwell Asylum before. It was great to learn more about history through this book, and I can see teachers and professors using this book in their classes. Another highlight of this book is the beautiful art. The detailed black-and-white illustrations perfectly complement the Gothic story. The artist must have done a lot of research into the hairstyles and fashion of women in the 19th century. If you're intrigued by the description, or if you're a fan of historical graphic novels, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in June!

As a huge Nellie Bly fan I was a bit disappointed. When I think graphic novels I don’t envision this. The many narrative bubbles seemed large and over baring. . I would have much rather of it been told from Bly POV rather then it feeling as though it was a report.

A beautifully illustrated graphic novel of Nellie Bly’s account of her ten days at Blackwell Asylum in 1887. The story is disturbing and moving, but the illustrations really bring all the horrors to life.