Before I Go to Sleep

Sigh, I ended up disappointed with this one in the end but it was a good enough time.

The beginning had an interesting premise with this lady never remembering past a day. I had some ideas for twists it could have, and I was engaged. But as time goes on it gets very repetitive. And while I think Christine’s waffling feelings about Ben make sense, man did I get tired of hearing about it. This problem could’ve been resolved just by shortening the book. Maybe better as a novella given how limited Christine’s movements are.

My other main struggle was with the twists I did end up with, especially the main one. I was bummed by it instead of intrigued. It felt so mundane in a way.

However, I do think the writing and the tone worked well. I was curious enough to finish. So I give it a 3 for being an alright time for the most part.

This book was amazing. The fact that not only could you not trust the people around her, because of her amnesia, you couldn't trust the narrator either made for such an interesting dynamic. The whole novel has you guessing, and this is one of the few reads that I didn't figure it out 25% in. In fact, I was kept wondering and guessing up until the end. I loved every minute of it, I devoured this book. I'm a new fan of SJ Watson for sure.
The main character Christine is likeable and sympathetic, but not overly so. I could do with a bit more empathy toward her, however it would be hard to write much of a personality to her with her amnesia being the way it is, and the author successfully builds her personality as much as possible as the book (and her life) goes on. My only complaint was that I wanted more, more details, more story. I highly recommend this book, it's one of the best ones I've read all year.

One of my favourite movies, top 10, is Memento, it's a cracking story, about somebody who wakes up every morning with no new memories and to make things crazy they've gotta solve a crime, the main character does this by tattooing clues on himself. So obviously when starting this my opinion was of it being a rip-off of the movie. It doesn't take that long for this story to find its own feet....and when you come to think of it a journal you write in seems more sensible than tattooing yourself.

Christine has suffered from trauma and since then can create no new memories, she is living at home with her husband and has a few techniques set up to help her get through the day without having a breakdown. She then meets a doctor who convinces her to write a journal about her day which she can read each morning, gradually she starts to remember glimpses of her past which starts to get darker and darker.

The writing is very good, there were a few times where the plot slows down too much for my liking, but the more Christine writes in her diary the more plot there is, so it just gets better and better. One very interesting thing was how much I got caught up in the story, the paranoia was contagious, I started finding myself not trusting any of the characters.

This was a great debut novel, I'm definitely gonna check out what else S. J. Watson has written.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2019/11/05/before-i-go-to-sleep-by-s-j-watson/

I got about ten pages into this book and I thought "wait, I've seen this movie." Christine has a form of amnesia where every night her memory resets. She wakes up to realize she is 22 years older than she thinks she is and that she has a home and a husband and a life she knows nothing about. She has been keeping a secret journal to try to job her memory and keep herself up to date, and discovers through the writing in the journal that her new life may not be all that it seems.

The premise was interesting (albeit the same premise as in 50 First Dates and Memento), and the book starts out very well. The structure and the narrator are well established in the beginning, and the writing is very compelling. But the second half doesn't follow through with the promise of the first, and again I had that funny sense of deja vu, only this time it was from a dozen tedious crime novels and episodes of CSI.

The book is a passable thriller, but I had hoped given the premise for it to rise up higher than that. Meh.