Review: Before I Go To Sleep

Title: Before I Go To Sleep
Author: S.J. Watson
Publisher: Harper Collins | Doubleday
Release Date: April 28th 2011
Genre: Mystery-Thriller (Psychological Thriller) | Suspense Fiction | Crime
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Kindle Edition
Rating: (4.5 STARS)

Blurb from Goodreads...

Christine wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man. She looks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar, middle- aged face. And every morning, the man she has woken up with must explain that he is Ben, he is her husband, she is forty-seven years old, and a terrible accident two decades earlier decimated her ability to form new memories.

But it’s the phone call from a Dr. Nash, a neurologist who claims to be working with Christine without her husband’s knowledge, that directs her to her journal, hidden in the back of her closet. For the past few weeks, Christine has been recording her daily activities—tearful mornings with Ben, sessions with Dr. Nash, flashes of scenes from her former life—and rereading past entries, relearning the facts of her life as retold by the husband she is completely dependent upon. As the entries build up, Christine asks many questions. What was life like before the accident? Why did she and Ben never have a child? What has happened to Christine’s best friend? And what exactly was the horrific accident that caused such a profound loss of memory?

Every day, Christine must begin again the reconstruction of her past. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more unbelievable it seems.

My Thoughts...

I have read some other stories where the main character suffers from amnesia, but not one where the memory is wiped clean every morning after a night's sleep. I loved the sense of impending doom on every chapter. It would make you turn the page again and again until you find out what really happened to Christine.

I can't imagine a life wherein every waking moment you will ask yourself where you are, who you're with, what you do. Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson gives us a great perspective if and when that kind of existence happens to anyone of us. It is scary, confusing, frustrating, maddening. I think if I am the one in Christine's place, I will go totally insane!

I would have given this book 5 stars but there were some lapses I would have loved addressed. Like how come nobody was looking for Christine and why her son Adam kept sending letters and pictures to the last facility she was in when their records should have shown Christine was with her husband Ben, Adam's very own father. Another instance was why nobody checked with the cafe when she was attacked, why no one came forward to volunteer information that she was seeing someone there before the incident happened. And some other instances in the story I believe needed some explanation of some sort.

But, all in all, the story is so captivating you will breeze through it.

***

Started reading on March 1st and ended on the 2nd.