Thanks NetGalley, RDS publishing and Sarah Hans for a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This novella started of strong and I enjoyed the atmosphere and the pace of the writing for the first portion of the book. Then it got to weird for me and I stopped enjoying it.

I would like to thank NetGalley for the e-arc of this Novella. (review contains spoilers). Asylum will be published 3/14/24.

I genuinely was 100 percent feeling this novella, until I wasn’t. It had the perfect start. Junkies squatting, running from the cops, strong personalties clashing. All the best ingredients for a gritty horror experience.

Somewhere around the 60 percent mark there was a major change up that felt rushed, clumsy even. It all goes downhill from there. The story never recovers and the reader is assaulted with a weird dose of furry-fetish-sexcapades.

I understand there will be a niche out there who will love this content, it just isn’t for this reader.

#NetGalley #Asylum #bookstagram #Horror #horrorbooks #betterreadthandead #horrorbooks #deankoontz #stephenking #weirdfiction #bookreview #GhastlyBookLover

Thank you to NetGalley and RDS Publishing for an ARC of this novella.

3.5 stars rounded down to 3.

Ashleigh and her group of friends are meth addicts, who are on the run looking for a new home so they can finally get clean. They decide to run to this abandoned asylum, since it's far from civilization and off the grid so they can remain hidden from police. However, once they arrive a shadowy figure appears to Ashleigh and things take a turn for the worse.

This one was difficult for me to rate, because there was a lot going on in such a short amount of pages. Despite that, it was actually really well written and mostly easy to follow. Themes of addiction (substance abuse as well as addiction to toxic relationships) were well-fleshed out, but it was maybe more than halfway through the story before anything "scary" started happening. For me, this wasn't really horror at all in a traditional sense. I think the horror was more about grief, addiction, and leaving toxic relationships more than any monster. The turn to a darker version of Beauty and the Beast was also something I didn't expect, and by the end I was left with more questions than those that were answered. I think this would make more sense to me if it was a full-length novel vs. a novella.

Overall, I liked the concept and the writing was well done and easy to follow for the most part. Very different concept than what I've read in the past and it was enjoyable and thought-provoking for a quick read!