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Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel by S. J.…
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Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel (original 2011; edition 2012)

by S. J. Watson

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
6,1564741,580 (3.71)1 / 254
Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:

New York Times Bestseller

"An exceptional thriller. It left my nerves jangling for hours after I finished the last page." â??Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Shutter Island

"Imagine drifting off every night knowing that your memories will be wiped away by morning. That's the fate of Christine Lucas, whose bewildering internal world is rendered with chilling intimacy in this debut literary thriller. . . . You'll stay up late reading until you know." â??People (4 stars)

Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you loveâ??all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story. Welcome to Christine's life. Every morning, she awakens beside a stranger in an unfamiliar bed. She sees a middle-aged face in the bathroom mirror that she does not recognize. And every morning, the man patiently explains that he is Ben, her husband, that she is forty-seven-years-old, and that an accident long ago damaged her ability to remember.

In place of memories Christine has a handful of pictures, a whiteboard in the kitchen, and a journal, hidden in a closet. She knows about the journal because Dr. Ed Nash, a neurologist who claims to be treating her without Ben's knowledge, reminds her about it each day. Inside its pages, the damaged woman has begun meticulously recording her daily eventsâ??sessions with Dr. Nash, snippets of information that Ben shares, flashes of her former self that briefly, miraculously appear.

But as the pages accumulate, inconsistencies begin to emerge, raising disturbing questions that Christine is determined to find answers to. And the more she pieces together the shards of her broken life, the closer she gets to the truth . . . and the more terrifying and deadly… (more)

Member:magentaflake
Title:Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel
Authors:S. J. Watson
Info:Harper Paperbacks (2012), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 368 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:*****
Tags:thrilling, exciting, nail biting

Work Information

Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson (2011)

  1. 92
    Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (becksdakex)
  2. 51
    The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (fannyprice)
    fannyprice: Similarly unreliable, damaged women trying to reconstruct their lives.
  3. 20
    In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware (Nickelini)
    Nickelini: Suspense mysteries featuring unreliable memories and isolation
  4. 10
    Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse (fannyprice)
  5. 11
    Little Face by Sophie Hannah (DeeDee80)
  6. 00
    After The Fall by Sarah Goodwin (GirlMisanthrope)
  7. 00
    Left Neglected by Lisa Genova (JenMDB)
  8. 00
    Black Out by Lisa Unger (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: The women in Before I Go To Sleep and Black Out are suffering from amnesia. They must piece together their identities in order to escape from threatening and disturbing forces at work in their lives.
  9. 00
    Painkiller by N. J. Fountain (Roro8)
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» See also 254 mentions

English (449)  Dutch (11)  French (4)  Spanish (3)  German (3)  Italian (2)  Danish (1)  All languages (473)
Showing 1-5 of 449 (next | show all)
Suspense
  BooksInMirror | Feb 19, 2024 |
Before I went to sleep last night (harhar), I picked up this book. I ended up not putting it down until I finished it almost two hours later. Despite my doubts about some of the believability of this story, I have to admit that SJ Watson grabbed me pretty thoroughly.

The story concept is based on the viewpoint of Christine Lucas, an "anterograde amnesiac" who cannot form new memories and forgets things as she sleeps overnight. Christine wakes up every morning to find her husband Ben in bed, who she does not recognise, and must look at photos and scrapbooks every day in order to relearn who she is. She receives a call from a Dr Nash, who tells her that she has been writing a journal so that she can retain some memories from day to day. Over the course of the journal, Christine grows ever more distrustful of her husband and Dr Nash - it appears that one or both of them are lying to her about her past. She remembers a son, Adam, whose existence is initially denied then confirmed by both Ben and Nash. An old best friend, Claire, is reported to have moved to New Zealand, and her previous aspirations of being a writer seem never to be mentioned. Aided by sparse recollections of memories, she eventually manages to get in contact with Claire. It transpires that the man she is living with is not in fact Ben, but Mike, a man she had been having an affair with and who subsequently lured her to a hotel and beat her, causing her amnesia. [synopsis to be finished]


I felt that the author succeeded in conveying the fear of the unknown that amnesiacs can face - the reader finds out about Christine's life even as she does. As I mentioned before, the novel succeeds in maintaining the level of suspense throughout the plot, and for a short read it was quite engrossing. I disagree with some of the other reviewers who seem to get hung up on the lack of medical accuracy with regards to amnesia - it is obvious that the premise of Christine investigating herself relies on being able to hold memories for more than a few minutes. It's a fictional novel and I don't think the degree of suspension of belief here is implausible or unwarranted.
My negative points about the book would have to be the difficulty with understanding Christine. Often she appears to break down at a the slightest trigger, then consider the trigger easily and rationally momentarily afterwards - it was a little jarring and disrupted my involvement with her plight. The other was that the way the events panned out was less surprising than I would have liked - I think Watson dropped a few too many clues about what was happening.
All in all, it serves its purpose as an easy-to-read entertainment novel, even if we learn less of value about amnesiacs than the author might have hoped.

( )
  Zedseayou | Jan 30, 2024 |
I love the concept of this book but I didn't really love the book itself.

It dragged quite a bit and I figured out part of the twist and then I was just waiting for the reveal to happen and it took too long and then it was largely unsatisfying anyway.

I wanted to like Christine more than I did. ( )
  hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 |
this is a very different kind of read for Me I don't generally finish books that start off really slow. I love the way this ended thought its a must read from me.
  b00kdarling87 | Jan 7, 2024 |
memento called, wants its plot device back..

i hate the main character. ( )
  robg760 | Dec 28, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 449 (next | show all)
What if you woke up every morning, confused and lost? What if the body you woke up in was not the body you remember going to sleep in? What if you were oblivious to the events of the last 30 years of your life? Memories are what define all of us as people. But when you wake up, tangled in lies, visions and fleeting images of memories that seem to dark and fiction to seem real, how do you make sense of that?

Welcome to the life of Christine Lucas, a middle aged woman suffering from extreme amnesia, who has no memory of what happened in her life for her past 30 years. When she sleeps, her memory melts away, like snow on a spring day.

The highly acclaimed, internationally best seller is truly a suspenseful, interesting and gripping book that will keep you entertained for all 356 pages of it. For lovers of Mysteries, this is a must read book, and I highly recommend it to everybody.
added by davidboot | editEnglish 9, David Boot (Jan 28, 2013)
 
What if you woke up every morning, confused and lost, and unfamiliar with your own reflection in the mirror? What would you do when you wake up, tangled in lies, visions and fleeting images of memories that seem to dark and fiction to seem real?

Welcome to the life of Christine Lucas, a victim of an unsettling accident leaving her unable to retain memories for longer than 24 hours. When she sleeps, her memory melts away, like snow on a spring day. Keeping a diary of her daily events, she fits the pieces of her life puzzle together; she reaches a disturbing conclusion.

The Journal style format of this book creates a truly unique style of writing, one that truly pulls you into the struggles of Christine’s daily life. The narration gives the reader a striking insight into the daily battle of discovering her identity. However, the style of daily journal entries can make the book slow at parts, but much like a roller coaster, it is all simply preparation for the plunge of excitement.

For lovers of mysteries and psychological thrillers, this is a must read book. However, I still highly recommend it to everybody. The sudden flashbacks, the distorted images and the faint impression that things are not at all what they seem. This book will make you rethink all of your unclear memories; it will keep you extremely entertained.

added by davidboot | editEnglish 9, David Boot (Jan 27, 2013)
 
The ending feels hurried; a sentimental postscript to the meticulously plotted main event. But these are minor gripes. Before I Go to Sleep is an enjoyable and impressive first novel. Like the best of its thematic predecessors, it is also an affecting moral allegory: don't forget your loved ones. Or else.
 
The most unnerving aspect of Before I Go to Sleep is the way it is rooted in the domestic, the suburban, the trivial. Forget whizz-bang futurism: it proceeds from ordinary life in tiny, terrifying steps, and is all the better for it.
 
Watson’s pitch-perfect writing propels the story to a frenzied climax that will haunt readers long after they’ve closed the cover on this remarkable book.
added by Shortride | editKirkus Reviews (Mar 1, 2011)
 

» Add other authors (43 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
S. J. Watsonprimary authorall editionscalculated
Cassidy, OrlaghNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
I was born tomorrow
today I live
yesterday killed me


—PARVIZ OWSIA
Dedication
For my mother, and for Nicholas
First words
The bedroom is strange.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
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Wikipedia in English (2)

Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:

New York Times Bestseller

"An exceptional thriller. It left my nerves jangling for hours after I finished the last page." â??Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Shutter Island

"Imagine drifting off every night knowing that your memories will be wiped away by morning. That's the fate of Christine Lucas, whose bewildering internal world is rendered with chilling intimacy in this debut literary thriller. . . . You'll stay up late reading until you know." â??People (4 stars)

Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you loveâ??all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story. Welcome to Christine's life. Every morning, she awakens beside a stranger in an unfamiliar bed. She sees a middle-aged face in the bathroom mirror that she does not recognize. And every morning, the man patiently explains that he is Ben, her husband, that she is forty-seven-years-old, and that an accident long ago damaged her ability to remember.

In place of memories Christine has a handful of pictures, a whiteboard in the kitchen, and a journal, hidden in a closet. She knows about the journal because Dr. Ed Nash, a neurologist who claims to be treating her without Ben's knowledge, reminds her about it each day. Inside its pages, the damaged woman has begun meticulously recording her daily eventsâ??sessions with Dr. Nash, snippets of information that Ben shares, flashes of her former self that briefly, miraculously appear.

But as the pages accumulate, inconsistencies begin to emerge, raising disturbing questions that Christine is determined to find answers to. And the more she pieces together the shards of her broken life, the closer she gets to the truth . . . and the more terrifying and deadly

No library descriptions found.

Book description
As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I'm still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me...

Memories define us.

So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?

Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love — all forgotten overnight.

And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.

Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis — all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac.

With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion.

What kind of accident caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted?

Haiku summary
To Christine, each day
Is a blank page. Who can she
Trust? Can we trust her?
(passion4reading)

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Penguin Australia

2 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia.

Editions: 1921758155, 1921758988

Recorded Books

An edition of this book was published by Recorded Books.

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