Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel (original 2011; edition 2012)by S. J. Watson
Work InformationBefore I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson (2011)
» 26 more Books With a Twist (27) Best Crime Fiction (113) Unreliable Narrators (92) ALA The Reading List (107) Books Read in 2013 (935) KayStJ's to-read list (335) Books Read in 2012 (192) First Novels (164) Alphabetical Books (68) To Read (350) Health & Medical (13) Mystery & Detective (93) Books on my Kindle (119) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.
Suspense 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. Belongs to Publisher SeriesFischer Taschenbuch (19146) AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
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.
|
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. Penguin Australia2 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia. Editions: 1921758155, 1921758988 Recorded BooksAn edition of this book was published by Recorded Books. |