ARA Review by Sarah Jefferies of Asylum

[Sarah Jefferies]

[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, Asylum.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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Asylum by Susy Smith is set in a dystopian American future in which martial law has been declared. The wider political and economic repercussions of this are barely explored in the novel which is more a romance with dystopian décor than a fully realised fantasy.

The principal character, Lacy Monroe, has stayed behind on her uncle, Senator Thomas Monroe’s 40 acre farm in Oklahoma at his request rather than fleeing to California with her parents and brother. She gathers a disparate band of people around her who are hiding from the Military Police or MP. Lacy herself has the freedom of her uncle’s farm on grounds relating, perplexingly, to Texas.

The narrative also follows the adventures of Jace Cooper whose pantomime villain brother has troubled the lives of both main characters. Jace seeks asylum on Lacy’s farm and the major focus of the book is the relationship between these two main characters.

The book’s characters tend to be one dimensional: the older woman, the Mexican, the spoilt blonde girl, the kid. Even the principal protagonists are stock figures, sometimes vulnerable, sometimes overbearing, shaped by narrative imperatives rather than driving the story. Character, here, is not fate.

The final third of the book returns to the dystopian theme as the two main characters follow separate storylines for a time and in this portion the interest level (for this reviewer anyway) improves but this is never an immersive alternate world. The book is well written in the American vernacular and grammatically sound. Some of the similes are interesting. The book can be read at pace and if (like me) you skip the love scenes, holds attention. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars because it’s relationship focus is at times to the detriment of characterisation and narrative plausibility.

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