Beyond Elsewhere

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Wildthorn

Wildthornby Jane England

Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor's daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key... (goodreads.com)

I almost did not finish this book. Not because it was bad but because it was freaking me out so much that I was feeling like I was going to have a panic attack for much of it.The idea of being sent to an asylum without knowing why and not knowing you were going and then being treated the way the patients were treated in that place. It was all just so... suffocating.The entire book I was in this continuous guessing loop - why was Lou committed? Who did it? And with each flashback to her past I would form these wild theories which I would then tell my husband all about in detail. I am certain he enjoyed that. Yes. He did. Yup. Especially after I'd read a couple more chapters and revise my wild theory with yet another one. I had no idea why things were happening and even with how creeped out I was by the whole story I needed to know WHY.I did have my suspicions of Whodunnit and I was sort of correct. When you finally get everything figured out at the end there is this mixture of shock, relief and absolute disgust and sadness floating about you.I am not entirely certain about the epilogue though. I think I could have done without it, but at the same time it did offer closure to some of the events that weren't wrapped up in that cloud of emotions as the story concludes.** This post has taken me over a week to write due to lack of time. The sucky part about that is that I have lost my train of thought and therefore I have forgotten the rest of what I wanted to add. I was haunted by this book for a few nights after it was done. Nightmares appeared like shards of glass and off-tune string instruments and I both cursed and praised the book for having such an effect on me.