The Sanatorium

Uhhhhh.......this book. I was so excited when a good friend of mine off Bookstagram gifted it to me because I have been seeing it around and wanted to read it myself. Well, let's just say that I have not had a harder time before getting through a book than I did with this one. After a few chapters in, I understood that the only way that I would be able to finish this book was to buy the audiobook and follow along and that's exactly what I did. Even though the audiobook was pretty well done and it made it more tolerable to get through it, it still didn't get me invested in the story and took everything I had in me not to dnf it.

First of all, The Sanatorium is about a detective who is on leave, Elin, as she takes a trip to see her long estranged brother who has recently gotten engaged to his girlfriend at a sanatorium that has recently been converted into a hotel and at which his new fiancé works. Things start happening and Elin is thrown back into detective mode as lives are taken and secrets come out. The plot sounded so good when I read the synopsis, especially because I enjoy these closed setting “who-dun-its” but it really lacked in the execution for me. All the aspects together really made for an extremely “slow-burn” novel that didn't really excite me, even when things were happening. That's never really happened to me in a novel before, especially with one that I was so excited to read in the first place.

Secondly, the characterization was mediocre. It wasn't anything special. For some reason I could not relate to the main heroine whatsoever, even though I have things in common with her, like suffering from panic attacks and having a lot of anxiety to deal with day to day. She just came across as too weak and I really wanted her to grow and come out of her shell but she didn't really do that, even at the end. All the characters had their own backgrounds and such and usually that would help in getting me to care about them and what happened to them but in this instance it did not penetrate beneath my skin and get any kind of emotion or feeling out of me. This is definitely a first for me.

Finally, the writing style is what I had the hardest time with whilst reading this novel. I just didn't vibe with it, at all. It felt somewhat choppy and the descriptions were a bit drawn out and repeated over and over again in somewhat various forms. As I wanted the story to progress and evolve, I would get a bunch more descriptions and what Elin was feeling over and over again. This novel was pretty long in my opinion but it could have been shortened considerable and that would have made for a much more thriller-y and heart pounding vibe.

In conclusion, I will not be recommending this novel to anyone because it didn't move me at all. I felt very distanced from the story and the characters the whole time and it didn't evoke any feelings within me. If you have the novel already, you can read it but if you're thinking about buying this, I would say pass. I wish I would have known how difficult it would be for me to finish this book beforehand.