Asylum gives readers lovely quotes about mental illness at the beginning of each chapter. The quotes chosen were deliberate and as I said, I need to give this book another read. I enjoyed the characters, but more than the story, I was impressed with the development of words from Lily White.
Asylum begins with an introspective moment for the main character Alex who finds herself locked in a mental institution and provides a clear introduction of her isolation to the reader. She claims she has been locked away for a month. With a peek into the words she is given from her fellow patients and the staff of the facility we understand that she has been there for years. She tells us that she does not remember the horrible things they claim she has done to be in the situation.
Somewhere around chapter three or four of the character introduction I had the thought that the story could be about any of the patients. We were given a window into Alex and the balance of her psyche that made her likable, as well as the things from her past that clearly made her criminally insane. But the girl who blinded her baby sister and relived the event daily, had to have had moments of lucid normalcy in her days and I felt like, although the patients contained within the ward were extreme cases of mental illness, if we were privy to their full character development, we would be impressed with the humanity that was hiding inside of their heads.
Alex, like many with PSTD, suffered trauma early in her life and then seemed to repeatedly have abuses forced upon her, including [graphically described] rape and the death of her parents. She discovers that she regressed the emotions of responsibility when it came to her parents death as well as dissociation with sex.
Alex is visited by her brother. He is a police detective and delves into the details of the crimes for which Alex has been institutionalized - murdering her lovers. She has been labeled a black widow and a new psychiatrist comes to open the memories Alex claims to not have.
The institution staff has only one person whom she trusts. There are orderlies who are misusing their position to drug women in the ward to rape them at night. But one night, Alex lies in fear while girls on either side of her are screaming. She is told that there is no one else in the ward. -- I thought perhaps White was working up to all the characters being fractures of Alex's mind and in fact the childhood incident being teased would be the blinding of her little sister. I was completely wrong.
There were moments that I found myself thinking, this would not be, leading me further to think we were getting moments of Alex when other characters were in the scene, like staff being caught dispensing the wrong medication and retaining their job? Her police detective brother investigating the murder case where his sister is prime suspect? A psychiatrist insisting to the patient that he was doing her a favor by treating her emotionally when his job was only to prescribe medication?
During the therapy, the doctor becomes infatuated with what he calls Alex's case study, but winds up in sexual encounters when he is alone with her. (Another completely inappropriate action.)
The freedom with which Alex has sex with the doctor is believable as someone who has been abused as a child. She is seeking approval and through the memories in which we become privy, we find that much of the approval she received was from sexual encounters, even though much of the abuse she encountered was also during sexual encounters.
The reveal spans over several chapters, which allows time for the details to sink in. [i can't stand it when the ending is just rushed together, like the punchline of a joke! Lily White really took her time with this one.]
The sexual abuse, repressed by her parents words, was at the hand of her brother's friend when her brother passed the responsibility of baby sitting. Her words distracted her father while driving causing the deadly accident taking her parents from her while she was young. Words were used erroneously to describe the man stalking her as hallucinations. The words other people told her were all Alex had to connect herself to her missing years. And the words Black Widow followed Alex around even though she was not responsible for any of the murders.
But then the epilogue threw me for a loop [i'm not spoiling the true ending] - Like i keep saying, I have to read it again!
The book is a dark erotic tale of young woman in a mental institution. And again, each character is real - not fractures of Alex's mind to deal with her PSTD. There is graphic sex described as well as violence. Having encountered psychiatrists, psychologists and spending time inside mental health facilities, the horrors of the mental institution seems almost antiquated in practice. But releasing my personal annoyance at the cliche crazies scenario, I truly enjoyed this book and more importantly Lily White's writing. She picked all the right words and strung them together beautifully.
Asylum begins with an introspective moment for the main character Alex who finds herself locked in a mental institution and provides a clear introduction of her isolation to the reader. She claims she has been locked away for a month. With a peek into the words she is given from her fellow patients and the staff of the facility we understand that she has been there for years. She tells us that she does not remember the horrible things they claim she has done to be in the situation.
Somewhere around chapter three or four of the character introduction I had the thought that the story could be about any of the patients. We were given a window into Alex and the balance of her psyche that made her likable, as well as the things from her past that clearly made her criminally insane. But the girl who blinded her baby sister and relived the event daily, had to have had moments of lucid normalcy in her days and I felt like, although the patients contained within the ward were extreme cases of mental illness, if we were privy to their full character development, we would be impressed with the humanity that was hiding inside of their heads.
Alex, like many with PSTD, suffered trauma early in her life and then seemed to repeatedly have abuses forced upon her, including [graphically described] rape and the death of her parents. She discovers that she regressed the emotions of responsibility when it came to her parents death as well as dissociation with sex.
Alex is visited by her brother. He is a police detective and delves into the details of the crimes for which Alex has been institutionalized - murdering her lovers. She has been labeled a black widow and a new psychiatrist comes to open the memories Alex claims to not have.
The institution staff has only one person whom she trusts. There are orderlies who are misusing their position to drug women in the ward to rape them at night. But one night, Alex lies in fear while girls on either side of her are screaming. She is told that there is no one else in the ward. -- I thought perhaps White was working up to all the characters being fractures of Alex's mind and in fact the childhood incident being teased would be the blinding of her little sister. I was completely wrong.
There were moments that I found myself thinking, this would not be, leading me further to think we were getting moments of Alex when other characters were in the scene, like staff being caught dispensing the wrong medication and retaining their job? Her police detective brother investigating the murder case where his sister is prime suspect? A psychiatrist insisting to the patient that he was doing her a favor by treating her emotionally when his job was only to prescribe medication?
During the therapy, the doctor becomes infatuated with what he calls Alex's case study, but winds up in sexual encounters when he is alone with her. (Another completely inappropriate action.)
The freedom with which Alex has sex with the doctor is believable as someone who has been abused as a child. She is seeking approval and through the memories in which we become privy, we find that much of the approval she received was from sexual encounters, even though much of the abuse she encountered was also during sexual encounters.
The reveal spans over several chapters, which allows time for the details to sink in. [i can't stand it when the ending is just rushed together, like the punchline of a joke! Lily White really took her time with this one.]
The sexual abuse, repressed by her parents words, was at the hand of her brother's friend when her brother passed the responsibility of baby sitting. Her words distracted her father while driving causing the deadly accident taking her parents from her while she was young. Words were used erroneously to describe the man stalking her as hallucinations. The words other people told her were all Alex had to connect herself to her missing years. And the words Black Widow followed Alex around even though she was not responsible for any of the murders.
But then the epilogue threw me for a loop [i'm not spoiling the true ending] - Like i keep saying, I have to read it again!
The book is a dark erotic tale of young woman in a mental institution. And again, each character is real - not fractures of Alex's mind to deal with her PSTD. There is graphic sex described as well as violence. Having encountered psychiatrists, psychologists and spending time inside mental health facilities, the horrors of the mental institution seems almost antiquated in practice. But releasing my personal annoyance at the cliche crazies scenario, I truly enjoyed this book and more importantly Lily White's writing. She picked all the right words and strung them together beautifully.