Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel Author: S. J. Watson | Language: English | ISBN:
B004GUSG4M | Format: EPUB
Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel Description
“Thebest debut novel I’ve ever read.”—Tess Gerritsen,bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series
“Anexceptional thriller. It left my nerves jangling for hours after I finished thelast page.” —Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Moonlight Mile
S. J. Watson makes his powerful debutwith this compelling, fast-paced psychological thriller,reminiscent of Shutter Island and Memento, in which an amnesiac who,following a mysterious accident, cannot remember her past or form newmemories, desperately tries to uncover the truth about who she is—and whoshe can trust.
- File Size: 514 KB
- Print Length: 515 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0062065238
- Publisher: HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (June 14, 2011)
- Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004GUSG4M
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,084 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #59
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Suspense > Psychological - #78
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Psychological Thrillers
- #59
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Suspense > Psychological - #78
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Psychological Thrillers
I'm not prone to over-the-top hyperbole, but I must say that S.J. Watson's debut "Before I Go To Sleep" caught me by complete surprise. I knew very little about the book and so went into the experience with no preconceived notions or expectations. And I'll tell you--I quite loved this book! In fact (cue hyperbole), it may just be my favorite book of 2011 thus far. The narrative structure of Watson's book is a complicated trick to pull off--and before I gush--I never fully believed it. Most of the story is structured as a diary, if you will, recounting daily events. In many cases this journal is hastily written, and yet it is just so thoroughly professional, polished, complete, and detailed. I know the character was a latent writer, but the prose is just too lush and descriptive to be random recollections and musings done in a time pinch. But even though I never really fully bought into this aspect, the book made me a believer with its compelling plot and challenging questions.
Very quickly, the story concerns a woman with an unusual memory deficiency. Every morning she awakes with no idea of who she is, where she is, and who is sleeping in bed next to her. Her husband must start every day hitting the highlights of her life and condition caused by a trauma many years in the past. Working with a tenacious new doctor, Christine starts to document each of her days in a journal. Keeping track of daily events and discoveries starts to link her full story together, but it might be a story best left unraveled. What begins as a harrowing psychological drama soon gives way to a suspense thriller where Christine doesn't know who to trust. She can't even trust herself!
Watson tells a killer tale, really entertaining.
With a premise as deceptively simple as this, execution is everything. How does one create a coherent first person narrative wherein the protagonist does not remember anything from the last chapter? In this case, Watson met the challenge in such a way that I was riveted from the disoriented beginning to startling end.
"I look up at the mirror.
"The face I see looking back at me is not my own. The hair has no volume and is cut much shorter than I wear it; the skin on the cheeks and under the chin sags; the lips are thin; the mouth turned down. I cry out, a wordless gasp that would turn into a shriek of shock were I to let it, and then notice the eyes. The skin around then is lined, yes, but despite everything else, I can see that they are mine. The person in the mirror is me, but I am twenty years too old. Twenty-five. More.
"This isn't possible. I begin to shake and grip the edge of the sink. Another scream begins to rise in my chest and this one erupts as a strangled gasp. I step back, away from the mirror...I step back farther, until I feel cold tiles against my back. It is then I get the glimmer that I associate with memory. As my mind tries to settle on it, it flutters away, like ashes caught in a breeze, and I realize that in my life there is a then, a before, though before what I cannot say, and there is a now, and there is nothing between the two but a long, silent emptiness that has led me here...."
Somehow, even though Christine wakes up each day without any recent memory, the narrative still progresses logically and in a fast paced manner. The mystery and suspense are built in as, seen through Christine's unreliable perspective, everything is suspicious and baffling.
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