Ten Days in a Mad House tells a fictionalized story of Nellie Bly's journalism work and advocacy for mental health rights. The artwork is strikingly beautiful and detailed. A good portion of this story relies on the tone and aura of the asylum setting and with rich linework and shading we can easily see and feel the changing in emotions and situations.

The writing is...fine. It's honestly almost a little too stale. I understand the nuance of capturing accurate dialogue of the time period, but some conversations between characters seemed weirdly inhuman and stiff. It does a good job of telling the story but doesn't necessarily do much else. That being said, sometimes that's all the author wants and all the reader wants.

graphic nonfiction - reviewed from uncorrected eARC

extremely well done in artwork and concept; I had read a basic summary of Bly's work in the insane asylum in history class but this graphic adaptation exceeds expectations.

This is a very well written and illustrated graphic novel of Nellie Bly's expose on the treatment of patients and living conditions. I've been intrigued by Bly's journalism and influence with her investigation of the asylum. I will be recommending this title for my library's graphic novel collection.

Nellie Bly’s story is one that needs to be told more. Her story as well as those who had spent time in asylums in the early days of asylums are often overlooked by most people. I loved the art in the graphic, I really enjoyed how the lines were used to create “insane” moments on some of the characters. The darkness in some of the moments reflects the darkness I am sure was felt during those times. I hope people pick up Nellies story. I also loved the closing line.

**Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC to review.**

A fascinating peek into what Nellie Bly’s undercover journalism might have been like. The story itself narrowly focuses on her experiences getting admitted to, living in, and getting out of Blackwell’s Home for the Insane. As a representation of what life was like as a woman at the time, or what life was like for those living with any number of mental or chronic health problems, the story is both chilling and illuminating. The black and white illustrations reflect both the chaos and restraint of such a life.

While the book included a really nice Authors’ Note, and a short list of mental health resources, the lack of any kind of bibliography was pretty glaring (and frankly, disappointing). I wish I knew how much (if any) of this story was based on Bly’s actual experiences.

This graphic adaptation breathes new life into Nellie Bly's investigation into 19-century madhouses. I think 9th - adult readers interested in mental health, history, journalism, or human rights would benefit from reading this adaptation.

I think the adaptation could have benefited from greater context of Bly's full impact on women in journalism and investigative reporting. I know the main purpose of the adaptation was to bring this essential work of journalism to life, but I feel the context would enrich a reader's experience - especially one unfamiliar with Bly.

"Beautifully adapted and rendered through piercing illustrations by acclaimed creators Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh, Nellie Bly’s complete, true-to-life 19th-century investigation of Blackwell Asylum captures a groundbreaking moment in history and reveals a haunting and timely glimpse at the starting point for conversations on mental health.

"I said I could and I would. And I did."

While working for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper in 1887, Nellie Bly began an undercover investigation into the local Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island. Intent on seeing what life was like on the inside, Bly fooled trained physicians into thinking she was insane - a task too easily achieved - and had herself committed. In her ten days at the asylum, Bly witnessed horrifying conditions: the food was inedible, the women were forced into labor for the staff, the nurses and doctors were cruel or indifferent, and many of the women held there had no mental disorder of any kind.

Now adapted into graphic novel form by Brad​ Ricca and vividly rendered with beautiful and haunting illustrations by Courtney Sieh, Bly’s bold venture is given new life and meaning. Her fearless investigation into the living conditions at the Blackwell Asylum forever changed the field of journalism. A timely reminder to take notice of forgotten populations, Ten Days in a Mad-House warns us what happens when we look away."

Nellie Bly is literally everywhere these days, so why not find out more with this beautiful graphic novel adaptation of what she was most famous for.

I thought this was a fantastic telling of Nellie Bly's story in graphic novel format. I did find the font choice hard to read at times, but I did like the use of font to emphasis the mental conditions Nellie was going through. The illustrations were very fitting to the setting and helped hold the story together.

The graphic novel adaption of Nellie Bly's "Ten Days in a Mad-House" covers the true story of reporter Nellie Bly's stay at the local Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island. During this time, women who were committed to this asylum were treated extremely poorly and were living in horrendous conditions. Bly managed to get herself committed to the island to uncover the horrors and shed light on the plights of the poor women who lived there. What she uncovered helped to change asylums during her time. This graphic novel does a really good job highlighting key parts of her book, but lack the same kind of emotional depth Bly's written work had. Still, it was an interesting read.

I really wanted to love this graphic novel, because I think this story is really important and still highly relevant. However, I struggled with the formatting. Some of the pages were quite text heavy with the text being very expository. It didn't seem to be re-imagined for the graphic novel format, as much as adding illustrations to the previous text. The combination of text heavy pages with the style of illustration could be distracting and hard to follow.

Ten Days in a Mad House by Nelly Bly, Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh

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.

We all got a taste of Nellie Bly when we watched the second season of American Horror Story: Asylum. We witnessed a reporter go undercover at an institution to see how the patients were being mistreated. How they weren’t being treated as human beings.

This story is factual to what Nellie Bly did and saw at her time before, during, and after her investigation. It’s devastating. I’m not sure how people can live with themselves after treating others so horribly.

The story is heartbreaking. This book with the story of being inside the asylum was okay. It wasn’t what I was expecting. The art wasn’t my favorite and took a lot away from the story. It’s all right for what it is but not the glorified masterpiece readers have been calling it.

Same story, but great art. It has kind of a weak let-down ending. Should have could have done more with the ending. Over all like stated, the same story, but the illustrations kept me reading.

“Ten Days in a Mad-House” was originally a series of articles written by Nellie Bly. This adaptation using the graphic adaptation style adeptly puts into “pictures” Ms. Bly’s original work.

Having read Ms. Bly’s original “Mad-House” articles, I have to say that this version takes the main points from the original articles and presents them in an abridged but cohesive manner. I must give praise to the illustrator for the use of dark/light in this book. Most of the characters were easy to keep apart (though some of the nurses/matrons did blur together). My one negative would be that a few of the more mad characters, at least when viewing this online, seemed to have fully white eyes - which was a bit jarring (ugh!).

The story, even so many decades later, is still horrifying. Mr. Ricca notes that some patients weren’t mad, but suffered from things such as post-partum depression. Sad to say, one of my relatives did spend a number of years in a “Mad-House” (thankfully not for a long time) due to post-partum; I can only hope that 40 years after Ms. Bly’s articles came out that my relative faired better than Ms. Bly’s companions.

A very well illustrated account of Nellie Bly's time spent in an asylum. This graphic novel adaptation is a great way to introduce this to new audiences, especially now when people are looking closely at how important mental health is. Seeing how patients with mental illnesses, or even just women people didn't want to deal with, were treated in the past gives us an idea of how far we've come... and how far we still need to go.

The black and white illustrations are striking, and perfect for the tone of the novel. Characters are easy to tell apart, even with how similar they all look while they are patients in the asylum, which is a huge credit to the illustrator. I will definitely be purchasing this title for my library system's collection.

This book does a really great job of capturing both Bly’s voice as well as the voices of abused women during the time period. Bly’s voice is very appealing, managing to be both concise and deeply emotional at the same time. This adaptation was quite well done. It didn’t feel rushed or too long. The pen illustrations work fantastically with Bly’s text. Everything is very proper and crisp, shifting to darker scenes and erratic lines during more traumatic moments. My only negative is that uniforms made it sometimes hard to tell characters apart, especially with the lack of color.

Ten Days in a Mad-House is a graphic adaptation of Nellie Bly's book of the same name telling of her undercover infiltration and investigation of Blackwell Asylum, a woman's institution in the late 19th century. If that synopsis fills you with a certain foreboding, your suspicions are correct and then some. Bly exposes a world of terror for women, full of men diagnosing them as insane based on eye brightness or actions on a single bad day, forced medication, imprisonment, and sadistic treatment by nurses/guards bordering on torture or attempted murder. It's a terrible enough experience for Bly, who is (too easily) able to pass herself off as insane and get herself committed by a team of male "experts", but downright heartbreaking for the many women she interacts with who have no hope of release like she does.

While I've not read the full book this is based on, I'm definitely now interested in doing so, as this is a courageous and daring attempt to change a broken and abusive system for the better in a difficult time period to be doing so.

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Gallery Books and Netgalley**

Overall, I was just not impressed by the art style. It did not lend itself well to the narrative at all and in some cases distracted from it. Some characters looked too alike which made following the narrative more difficult.

Once I started I couldn’t stop. Really enjoyed everything about it. Made me want to learn more about Bly.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Gallery Books for an advanced copy of this historical graphic novel.

Back in the day when crusading spunky young women trying to make their way in the world wasn't a trope for a lot of streaming series on Netflix, Nellie Bly was the most crusading, spunkiest women reporters in the City of New York. Before it became de rigueur for reporters to save their biggest stories for the pricey book deals, Nellie Bly did stories that changed things. Divorce law, women factory workers, even travelling the world in 72 to prove it could be done, and to learn more about it. Her biggest and her best story would be the time she went undercover to discover the treatment of people society declared either lunatics or untreatable, including spending ten days in New York's most infamous asylum.

Writer Brad Ricca and illustrator Courtney Sieh have adapted Nellie Bly's 1888 book Ten Days in a Mad-House into graphic novel form. The book starts with Ms. Bly after arriving in New York in hopes of gaining a reporter's job at one of the many newspapers. After impressing an editor at Joseph Pulitzer's publication, Nellie is given her first assignment, report on conditions for patients at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island. Sadly she finds it not that hard to go undercover as a patient, being a woman seems to be a major symptom for most doctors and soon she finds herself on the island. Conditions are horrid with poor food, ill trained staff, not enough bedding or blankets and Doctors who seem to be above it all and Nurses who seem like oppressors more than healers.

The story is adapted well and quite beautiful to look at. All the characters inmates, doctors, and others are all distinctive and don't appear just to say a few words and disappear like a Broadway play. The writing is good, using many of Ms. Bly's words and tells the story clearly and with a lot of feeling for the characters and the situation, never sensational but factual. The art is strong and again clear, with a lot of subtle hints in each panel that gives the characters a distinctiveness, with a a good use of panels to tell the story.

Nellie Bly was an inspiring character who accomplished quite a lot. This graphic novel rally captures well what she did for the women, many who were cast aside for being foreign, difficult or just being women. Graphic novels are a great tool for learning more about the world an the people who have tried to make a difference. I look forward to reading more by both creators.