Ten Days in a Mad-House

Ten Days in a Mad House is a true story about a female journalist named Nellie Bly who traveled to NYC in search of work. She went around to various newspapers finally sneaking her way into one to cover the next biggest expose “life in a Women's insane asylum.” After being deemed insane by a Boarding house for feigning erratic behavior, she is sent away to Blackwell Asylum on a remote island. When she goes to the asylum she experiences brutal conditions as well as unfair treatment by the nurses. She tries to blend in risking exposure, hoping to push for better living conditions for the inhabitants of the asylum.

Let's start with the illustrations. The artist, Courtney Sieh, is extremely talented. Each drawing is detailed and you can see the utter terror and emotion on the character's faces. I love how it's black and white which really gives you that “old timey” historic vibe. Even without words, the reader is able to tell what's going on in the story.

As for the story, it was shocking, intense and harrowing. It's sad that it's true but there is a bit of light at the end. A small step towards a better society if you may. If you're unfamiliar with this particular story, it could come across as fiction, that's how horrific it is.

I enjoyed this graphic novel a lot and it piqued my interest in the topic of insane asylums which is ironic since that's exactly what Ms. Nellie Bly intended to do.

As the year nearly ends I am trying to mark down all the books that I have completed this year so this is why my review isn't long or detailed.

This was an interesting and fast paced read that followed journalist, Nellie Bly as she gets herself admitted into an asylum. It was horrible to read about how patients were treated by the staff of people who were supposed to take care of them at their most vulnerable.

It was eye-opening how easy it was for a woman to be admitted and declared ‘insane'

This is a great read if you want to start dipping your toes into the nonfiction genre or if you need to find some short reads to get closer to your reading goal!

The concept is great, but there are a few detractors. There are errors that the editor or the letterer should have spotted such as words being out of order in a sentence. Some transitions seemed abrupt or out of nowhere. In the edition I read the very first page isn't a title page it's a (mock?) ad for corsets, which is fine but it would have been better – and made more sense– if there were additional ‘ads' throughout the book, giving it the feeling of being read in a newspaper, but because there was only one, and its placement, it falls flat.

I do appreciate being able to read this adapted work of Nellie Bly. Perhaps I'll seek out another version or the original. I think this is important. Last weekend while visiting with an aunt she said she thinks that we should ‘bring back' mental asylums, so I mentioned that I was reading this. I agree with her that there should be more places that are accessible that help people recover, but that they need oversight and then another aunt and I brought up the abuse that occurs at care homes for the elderly. obviously mental asylums (or rather Psychiatric hospital) still exist, it just seems that every so often the news covers the closing of one and it seems like they're disappearing. Also addiction recovery facilities all seem to report something like 80+% recovery rate but are usually less effective than that.