Book Review: Sanctum by Madeleine Roux

Book: Sanctum (Asylum #2)
Author: Madeleine Roux
Published: August 26, 2014
Publisher: HarperCollin
Number of Pages: 343
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Rating: 4 Stars
Tags: YA, Thriller, Scary, Readathon

Goodreads/Amazon

Synopsis: Dan, Abby, and Jordan remain traumatized by the summer they shared in the Brookline asylum. Much as they'd love to move on, many questions remain, and someone is determined to keep the terror alive, sending the teens photos of an old-timey carnival, with no note and no name. Forsaking their plan never to go back, the teens return to New Hampshire College under the guise of a weekend for prospective students, and there they realize that the carnival from the photos is not only real, it's here on campus, apparently for the first time in many years.

Sneaking away from sample classes and college parties, Dan and his friends lead a tour of their own—one through the abandoned houses and hidden places of a surrounding town. Camford is hiding a terrible past, and the truth behind Dan's connection to the asylum's evil warden is more terrifying than Dan ever imagined.

-MY REVIEW-

So, I decided that I wanted to read something scary a couple days ago, and this is the book that I gravitated towards. Mainly because this was one of the few scary books that I had on hand, but it was mainly based on the cover. So, even though I only rated the previous book 2.5 stars, this was the book that I chose. Well, let's just say that I was pleasantly surprised.

In the second book in the Asylum series, Sanctum, Dan, Abby, and Jordan return to New Hampshire College after receiving some mysterious clues that needed to be answered. With appearances from old characters, and a interesting cast of new characters being introduced, this book had lots of old slices of cheesecakes to sort through (what did I just type?).

So, let me start off by saying that this book was so much better than the first one, and there were lots of improvements. I thought that the story telling was a lot better. Everything flowed together nicer, and the clues were integrated into the story very smoothly. But I thought that the pictures were placed in odd places. There were times when a picture would be in a chapter, but the picture and chapter didn't have anything in common. I mean, the pictures were cool, but I would have liked it if they lined up with the story a little more. 

I also liked the characters more in this one. Throughout book one it felt like I didn't really know the characters because they were very artificial. And that did improve in this book. It might have just been because I knew them a little better because it wasn't my first time meeting them, but it was nice to not be reading about robots.

The big problem with this book was that it just. wasn't. scary. I don't know. Maybe I don't get scared easily, but these books never seem scary to me. Yes, there are some parts where I was thinking, "Okay. Wow. Yep. That was meant to creep me out." But I never got scared, and I wanted to be scared!

So overall, I really liked this book. I thought that it was a major improvement over book one with the characters, story telling, and even the plot. Though I don't know when, I do plan on finishing this series. 

"Nice try. Very stirring speech. But I'm afraid you're wrong, Daniel. I am not a victim, I most certainly am the villain. I haven't gotten to choose much in my life but this much I choose: I am the villain."