Book Review: Emilie Autumn's The Assylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

I've been meaning to review this book for a little while now but I wanted to let the story sink in a bit first before I posted. This is not an easy book. This is not a "fun, light hearted" book. This is a book about society and about women's "place" in it. This is a book about mental illness and about how as a society we deal with mental illness. This is a book about bad things happening to good people, about the status quo, about the medical profession, about social stigma and prejudice. This is an absolutely heartbreakingly honest book that is now in my top ten books of all time. It is such a shame that EA has had to independantly publish this because more people will not be able to read this. It's a shame that the BBC cannot do a mini series of this because not only is this an amazing piece of fantasy and biography, this is also a very, very, very well written story.

From the blurb:

Straddling the bookshelves somewhere between psychological study, historical horror story, and fantasy fiction sits Emilie Autumn’s debut autobiographical novel, “The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls.”
Written and illustrated by the notoriously manic-depressive rock star, this chilling tale combines humor, tragedy, and suspense to produce a blood-curdling account of the nightmare that is life inside an insane asylum, comparing those from the Victorian era with our modern day version, and proving, through her own personal experiences, that not much has changed from then to now...
It is a reality-bending thriller as well as a profoundly empowering tale of suffering, sisterhood, and revenge that culminates in what is perhaps one of the most suspenseful cliff-hangers of all time.
Prepare yourself to enter a world most pray never to visit. But beware: It is much easier to get into the Asylum than it is to get out…

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