Reviews

So... when I first started reading the Asylum series, I was told it went in order of Asylum, Sanctum, Catacomb, The Asylum Novellas, then the final book(which I have not read yet)
Just to find out that the Asylum Novellas are just the backstory of the Bone Artists, the Scarlets and the Warden. I further googled and realized that the novellas are actually 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 and should be read in between the books of the series but I did still enjoy the backstory.

My least favorite backstory was probably about the Warden. It was interesting to read about Lucy and how she ended up there and the treatment she received but there was not enough telling about why he was doing what he was doing to his patients and where it was coming from and why it started.

My most favorite novella was probably the Bone Artists, it was page turning and very interesting to see what happened to the families in New Orleans.

I finished in a day and it was overall okay, probably would have enjoyed more if I read in the correct order

kaceylaine's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I could not pass up this addition to the Asylum series!

jugglingpup's review against another edition

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4.0

To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.

These are the novellas in the Asylum series. They are listed as 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 in the series. You can see reviews for the prequel,the first book, the second book, and the third book as well.

I read each story in the appropriate timeline, which is probably a mistake with this series. The novellas are so much better than the main three novels in the series. It is obvious that Roux hit her stride in these and the prequel. They are significantly more engaging and spookier by far.

The Scarlets: This follows after the first book and talks about one of the main villain characters in the second novel. This focuses on Cal dealing with his overbearing father and what that means for him. He is gay and an alcoholic. The story itself was interesting. The way that the secret society was revealed and how it impacted the story. How quickly results were gotten. It was wonderful. I was getting chills. The novella was scarier than the novel following the idea of the Scarlets was. Cal was a fully fleshed out character thanks to the novella which gave the novel so much more depth than it had without him being fleshed out. This trend of fleshing out a major character in a novella, continues in the others. If I hadn’t read the novellas, then the novels would have been drastically flat. The bad guys would just be flat. The helper characters would just be a plot device. There was so much missing from these novels that the novella provides. Cal’s story is just the first.

The Bone Artists: This story fleshes out Micah and Oliver. Micah being the helper character from the second book and a plot device in the third. There is mention that he has a criminal past, but it isn’t really talked about. The idea that this novella raises makes his past so much more sinister and interesting. Otherwise it just felt like a random thing that kept being used as a plot device in the first novella and as just a thing to make him unique in the second book. This book also fleshes out the character of Oliver who is the helper character in the third book. Without the novella, there was so much less to Oliver’s character. He would have been flat and his motivations wouldn’t have made all that much sense. This novella is the only reason I could really get through the third book at all. The novella gave the entire book depth and substance. It was downright spooky with the grave robbing. It built up this atmosphere that the novel sadly wasn’t able to keep up with.

The Warden: This is the origin story of Nurse Ash. It follows her arriving at Brookline to her meeting the main character of the prequel. This was the weakest novella of the three. It doesn’t add anything to the prequel for the most point. It fleshes out Nurse Ash, but her character has some fleshing out in the novel in a way that made her slightly more than just a stock plot device helper character. It does flesh out more for Lucy and the stuff that comes up near the end that gives Nurse Ash her motivations. It explains when she means that she failed Tanner and Madge. That whole plot was not explained at all in the novel, it was just referenced that Jocelyn blames herself and that others blame her for what happened. So while it was nice to see what really happened in the past, it was still made pretty clear in the novel that there was shady stuff happening before the main character arrived. It was interesting to see where the warden’s nickname came from though.

So overall, all of the novellas were better than the books they expanded, except the last one. The novellas and the prequel carried me through this series. If I had read them in the order they were published, I would not have made it this far. Reading the novellas in the timeline as they stand gave the novels the push they needed to be enjoyable. I only wish that I had read the third novella before prequel. It doesn’t make sense that it is listed as book 3.5 when it really comes before the prequel which is listed as .5.