Reviews for Sanctum
School Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Gr 9 Up- Dan, Abby, and Jordan are forced to revisit their traumatic past at Brookline Asylum when mysterious photos draw them back to town and to dark secrets. This is a seriously spooky tale; purchase this series where quirky horror is popular. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
The eerie atmosphere of Asylum (2013) has a hard time making itself felt in this sequel.After Dan Crawford and his friends were nearly murdered at New Hampshire College, the site of a former mental hospital, they find themselves haunted. Abby and Jordan receive cryptic old carnival photos, and Dan is urged by the boy who almost killed him to return to NHC and "follow" the photographs. Dan, Abby and Jordan pose as prospective freshmen, arriving to find crowds of unrealistic college students and a bizarre mess involving hypnotism, a mysterious stone and a cult called the Scarlets. Plagued by what might be ghosts or hallucinations, Dan uses his vague mental connection with the asylum's former warden to investigate the Scarlets and discovers that he's not the only one with ties to the asylum. The plot meanders, and the characters develop very little beyond a romance between Dan and Abby; Dan's possible relationship with the warden remains unexplored, and his own mental illness is so unspecific that it's unclear whether he's possessed or hallucinating. Mock photos of carnival performers are interesting but don't always match the text, so they feel disruptive. The ending delivers a disturbing moment with creepy implications, but the disorganized buildup still reduces its impact.Fans of Asylum will want to read this, but they shouldn't expect a logical continuation of the first book. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
The sequel to Asylum (2013) lacks the potency and freshness of the first title, partially because of the need to summarize previous events and circumstances, but primarily because even creepy carnivals can't begin to compete with haunted abandoned madhouses. High-school seniors Daniel, Abby, and Jordan return to New Hampshire College, ostensibly on a college tour, but really to follow the clues poor possessed Felix gives them to solve the mystery of Brookline Asylum's insane warden. This time the scary elements are a traditional carnival (a campus tradition revived for the visiting prospective students) and a tour of various haunted houses. With plentiful old photographs of carnival acts, Roux works the creepy verisimilitude that made Asylum such a page-turner. The haunted-house explorations are especially cinematic and spooky. While the side plot involving a secret society is more than a little hard to believe, Roux knows how to keep the action rolling and the reader hooked. A confusing and abrupt ending promises a third volume in the series.--Carton, Debbie Copyright 2014 Booklist
