Reviews

I liked elements of this, there was clearly a lot of research put into representing the true Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and the "moral treatment" advocated by Thomas Story Kirkbride. I liked the themes about war, trauma, abuse, memory, healing, but the predictability of the plot was a drawback.

I listened to the audiobook, and I do think it was well performed. Though difficult to follow the hazy, meandering sentences sometimes, after reading others' reviews, it doesn't seem like that experience was unique to the audiobook version.

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sandsing7's review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Read it for the plot - not the characters. It has one of the most disturbingly graphic scenes I’ve ever read - comparable to how I felt about that infamous Outlander scene.

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readingtomydogs's review against another edition

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3.5

It wasn’t terrible, I liked the multiple POVs. But it was about 85% before anything happened.

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beedew's review

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dark emotional hopeful relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

dee_seeks's review

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4.5

Good audio performance

starstuff's review

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2.0

At a sentence by sentence level, reading this felt like treading through deep mud. The writing is so muddled and pretentious, I found myself pulled out of story because of constant eye-rolling…

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