Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

I guess when I first started reading Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson, my thoughts turned to the movie 50 First Dates with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. In the movie, Drew Barrymore plays Lucy Whitmore, a woman who doesn’t have any memories of what happened since her accident several years ago. She lives each day with no memory of what happened the previous day.So, seven years later, SJ Watson adopts the same premise in his book. Again, we have a character named Christine who has no memories of what happened to her since her accident and she lives day by day with no memory of what happened the previous day. The difference here is that Before I Go To Sleep is a psychological thriller, not a romantic comedy.It really doesn’t matter to me that the same plot device is used. It makes for a great book as Christine doesn’t remember what happened to her and the reader has to figure out what happened. Yes, there are some clues but I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by this plot, especially when I wonder if Christine can trust any of the other characters. The book moves along nicely, and I’m hoping that Christine will regain her memory even though the odds are that it seems that it won’t happen and she may lose what she remembers the next day even though she is keeping a journal.The story moves along nicely as we see Christine having flashbacks that lead her to some answers. The story moved nicely for me with that and made me wonder where the story was going. It was a very unpredictable ride right down to the end. To me, the concept of the story was great since it involved someone having amnesia.Most of the reviews for the book seemed good on Goodreads. There were some one star and two stars on Amazon. Many of them said the book was boring or was not well written or the who story was unbelievable. I think that no matter what, there will be some one and two stars ratings over 1,000 people read a book. I can’t say that I agree with those reviews.My thought is that this is fiction and the author did his job of moving the story along nicely and gave it a good ending. As I said earlier, I think that the concept of using amnesia in a story is something that a lot of people like since you can find yourself rooting for the protagonist to get his or her memory back. To me, the story was entertaining and lived up to be one of the best books of 2011. I really enjoyed this book and wish I can give it more than five stars.

You wake up in the morning and realize you are in bed with a man you don't recognize. You find your way to the bathroom only to see someone else looking back out at you from the mirror. Someone much older than you. And there are pictures of this person and the man in the bed surrounding the mirror. Are you dreaming? This is Christine's everyday life. Every morning, she wakes up, not remembering anything since her accident. Her loving husband, Ben, tells her everything she needs to know every morning before he goes off to work. But she is starting to have glimpses of memories or what she thinks are memories. And a doctor has approached her and has had her start writing a journal to help her remember things from day to day. What will happen if she can remember the accident? Was it an accident or was it something else? Who are these other people she seems to be remembering? For a first book, this was really well written. A little slow at times but the ending was crazy. Highly recommend

Christine proves rather reliable in her unreliability as a narrator. But it's not exactly breaking character since she can't remember. I've had traumatic experiences in my life, and I can't remember that particular time period. My mind is blank. It's like that particular event didn't happen, except I remember the before and the after and there's a crumpled car to prove to me that I'm not just making stuff up in my head. And if your entire world revolves around your husband Ben and you suddenly see three words in your diary--DON'T TRUST BEN--I can understand how that might be terrifying and traumatic for you. I'd equate it to building a million dollar mansion on quicksand.The structure worked for me. It added suspense. Had BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP been structured any other way, it would have crumbled in on itself like an origami bird. But I didn't like the ending. It felt a bit like cheating to me. *BEGIN SPOILER* Christine suddenly has her memory back or large chunks of it at least, because the supposed traumatic event is over, and Mike has been expunged from existence. It seemed a tad convenient for me. S.J. Watson may, or may not, have consumed an illegal substance during this period, and there's a decent chance he may have inhaled. *END SPOILER*But otherwise the story worked. It had a different feel to it, and I was turned on enough to want to know what happened, but I did have a sinking suspicion I had the ending figured out before it arrived.For those of you who don't like tangents, you'll probably want to skip right on over this part. Let's get one thing straight: There are no original plotlines. The well of lost plots has been used up, drying faster than the Nevada desert. Sure, it's easy enough to make the argument that this story is similar to Memento, but so what? We might as well take every romance and mystery off the shelves...and sit around and wait for someone to come up with something "original." I'll save you the suspense: You probably have a better chance of meeting a little green alien, having him tickle your forehead, and then receiving a wet smack to the lips. Guess what? The Fast & The Furious is essentially the same as Point Break, only there're cars and car racing instead of surfing. And the director of The Fast & The Furious is in preproduction on a remake of Point Break. You're welcome.But let's get to the good news: Even without an endless number of plots, there are an endless number of ideas and experiences and opportunities and characters that writers can bring to the table, bringing an essential "uniqueness" to the creative drawing board. The Fast & The Furious feels different from Point Break because the characters are different. End tangent.Robert DownsAuthor of Falling Immortality: Casey Holden, Private Investigator

This book has been languishing in my kindle since 2016 and I finally started it. And finished it. Quickly. Great plot line, well structured, excellent pacing. My heart rate increased more than once in this book. Near the end I was doing the expected guessing game, and even though I guessed something big, I couldn't figure out for myself HOW it had happened. Very well done!

Can’t stop reading! Mesmerizing and riveting book

The book is a bit boring at the first chapters, but I just can’t simply put a book down after I started and kept reading ...at the second half it gets really interesting and gooood!

It is difficult to find a book that actually makes you think about it all day long and you cannot wait to go back and read the rest of it. It was thrilling, unpredictable and gave a totally new perspective.

Questo libro ti coinvolge tanto!Essendo amante dei thriller, ho trovato questo libro interessante. Ogni volta che si inizia un capitolo nuovo, la tua testa inizia a lavorare (cercando di capire cosa succede veramente).Ricco di colpi di scena! Finale inaspettato!Raccontato in prima persona e molto scorrevole.Letto in lingua iglese, vocaboli semplici (adatto anche per chi non conosce la lingua perfettamente) Lo consiglio vivamente!