Shadows in the Asylum: The Case Files of Dr. Charles Marsh

I was admittedly a little disheartened to learn that this wasn't a nonfiction book (it's listed directly on the back cover as Fiction/Horror), but all the same it seems extremely realistic. Simply put, the way the book is organized makes it look like scanned official documents and other papers. There was even a substantial amount of attention given to the little details, which makes it a lot more enjoyable to read.As for the content of the book itself, a short description would be "it's interesting." As of writing this review, I've managed to read half of the book within two or three hours. So far, it's focused mostly on one patient, which quite frankly is fine by me: I get confused if things jump around too much (not something this book does). Unless you're a slow reader, this does not take very long to go through. It's not a picture book, but there is a lot more imagery than text (in my opinion at least...I'm used to solid blocks of text, not the way it's organized here.) You follow the stories through a series of documents and notes written about or by the doctor counseling the patients, instead of reading a paragraph-after-paragraph narrative or memoir.I would not classify this as a horror book though. Granted, I've only read a little more than half of it, but regardless it just doesn't feel like it would belong in that genre to me.To summarize my review, I will definitely recommend the book to others, but I feel that in some ways the way it is organized both strengthens and weakens the overall structure of the book. Some papers are cut off in the middle and you never really finish the entire thing, but you still get the gist of what's going on.

I changed my review of this book about 3 times before removing most of it. I initially had some spoilers, but decided against including them. I'd really love to discuss this book with someone, to see if I interpreted things correctly while it is all fresh in my head. Not much left of my review after removing the spoilers... I thought the book's content/plot was better than average. The manner in which the content was delivered was superb! As someone with slight ADHD, the book pulled me in, and kept my mind from wandering. That had a lot to do with the way the material was presented. One page would be a patient/doctor session transcript and the next page would be a copy of an email sent from someone to the main character. I'd love to read more books presented in this manner. If you buy this and find you are one of the rare few who finds the first couple dozen or so pages boring, please hang in there. I promise that when the storyline kicks into overdrive, you will not be able to put the book down. I was up till 3:00 AM this morning finishing the book. FYI, I am somewhat of a slow reader and it took me about 5 hours to get through the book.

I love epistolary novels. "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins (the first one!), "Up the Down Staircase" by Bel Kaufman, "The Anderson Tapes" by Lawrence Sanders, and now this book!What makes this book unique is the extreme creepiness of the story. The blurbs say it is has elements of HP Lovecraft, which is always a good thing.I read it straight through in a night.There is a lot of stuff to keep track of. There is also a lot of cultural references, which are fun to see and recognize.This author wrote a similar book which became the movie "The Blair Witch Project". Hopefully this will be a movie also.Another reviewer said it reminded them of Mark Z. Danielewski's incredible book "House of Leaves". Also a great thing.Read this book.

The premise of this book was great...the lost notes of a disgraced psychiatrist, left behind to explain a series of deaths at a mental institution. Everything from session notes to flyers for the asylum looked legit. The plot was easy to follow, with an interesting mix of both viewpoints and writing styles (much like a cross between Stoker's Dracula and The Blair Witch Project). Many items in the story, I felt, went unexplained (or possibly over my head!), which detracted a bit from the plot. I believe it would have benefitted from a few more detailed pages and more of an atmospheric feel (Fall of the House of Usher would be a good model for this story). On the whole, this was a decent story and well worth the cost. It was not very scary, though, and slightly disappointing in that respect.

I just finished reading "Shadows", which I enjoyed because of the visual format - loved all the different types of documents and partial snippets of information. However, I'm not sure I really understand the ending...without going back and reading the whole thing again. There were a few too many characters for me to keep track of who was who and how they all tied together - it didn't seem to me like some of them did, unless I missed something. Could someone please reply with a comment to enlighten me with your explanation of the ending, maybe with a "Spoiler" warning so others who don't want to know the ending won't read by mistake? thanks!

If you loved "The Blair Witch Project", you'll love this book. The setup is the same: through files, diary entries,newspaper clippings, memos etc. the history of the patient (s) is revealed. It feels like looking into someone's personal thoughts and sometimes I felt as if I were invading a patient's privacy.Since there is no full text, only copies of documents, the books isn't always easy to read but it does keep you intrigued; you really want to know what happened to put these patients in such a state of mind. It really reads like a case file!The book isn't for everyone I guess, but if you like a good and intelligent thriller/horror story it is a must read.

Not quite what I expected but couldn't put it down, recommended.Apparently nine more words are needed so here they are (+ one for free)

Die Aufmachung des Buches ist super, es ist als ob man durch Kopien alter Akten blättert. Extrem kurzweilig und interessant, hat mir sehr gut gefallen