Title: Before I Go to Sleep
Author: S.J. Watson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: February 7, 2012
Pages: 358
Book Source: Library Hardcover
S.J. Wmakes his powerful debut with this compelling, fast-paced psychological thriller,reminiscent of Shutter Island and Memento, in which an amnesiac who,following a mysterious accident, cannot remember her past or form new memories, desperately tries to uncover the truth about who she is—and who she can trust.
My Review:
What a wonderful debut novel! The first thing I have to mention is the style in which this book is written. A lot of it is in diary form, and Christine must reread it every morning to remember what is happening. I was really afraid that this would get repetitive and really annoying, but Waston masterfully wrote it so that it didn’t.
Every night Christine goes to sleep and loses all of her memories. She wakes up next to a man she doesn’t know, and has to relive each day remembering things about her past. Her husband, Ben, has put up pictures all over the mirror in the bathroom, so when she goes in there in the morning, she not only finds these, but finds herself in a middle aged body. Ben tells her about her past everyday, and she has a new doctor who is also trying to help her.
It’s amazing how Watson wrote such a flowing, tense, and thrilling story when the main character can’t tell her story, and we need to rely upon her journal and other people to tell it for her. Yet, she’s the one telling most of the story, in a lush and compelling way, because before she got insomnia, she was a writer.
There are so many twists and turns in this book. Christine starts to wonder who she can trust, or if she is going crazy. Every time Christine changed her mind, I could easily see how that could be the truth. Towards the end I even went back to various parts of the book to see if the author had slipped up and people acted or said something that contradicted the story line, but Watson did such a perfect job, it’s hard to believe this is a debut novel.
I would highly recommend this book. Although there are books I can say someone should read in a particular genre, this is one that I would recommend to everyone, no matter what they normally like to read.