Before I Go to Sleep - S. J. Watson

Summary: “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, evens the people you love –all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story. Welcome to Christine’s life. Summary from book, cover image from indiebound.org

My Review: From the moment you open this book you will be drug into  Christina’s world of confusion – who is this woman in the mirror, who is the man she woke up next to in that strange bed this morning, who can she trust and who should never trusted? Can she even trust her diary, the words she wrote as memories, or are they fiction like the novel she once wrote?

Each morning Christine wakes without any memory of the last 25 years. She does not know where she is, does not recognize her husband and is unfamiliar with the face staring back at her in the mirror. Each day her husband, Ben, explains that she had an accident that took away her memory. He retells her life to her. Christine has no choice but to trust him. Yet as she rediscovers her diary she finds herself wondering if that is the worst mistake she can make.

Before I Go to Sleep is a fast-paced thriller. From the opening page the story grips the reader and refuses to let go. Christine’s journey for the truth takes the reader on a roller coaster ride of emotion. It twists and turns at the most unexpected times, leaving the reader on the edge the entire ride.  Though the pace slowed at times the story itself was impossible to turn away from.

Christine’s character leaps from the pages filling the reader with her terror. Christine’s last memories are from college. It is impossible not to pity her as she fills uncomfortable inside a body twenty five years older then she remembers. You will find yourself cheering for Christine as she has a memory even though that memory will be erased by the time she wakes.  Even if you figure the mystery out before Christine does, the end remains gripping.  

My Rating: 4.5 stars

To Sum it up: An entertaining mystery with high stakes sure to keep you up reading late into the night.