Ratings29
Average rating3.9
"In the vein of SJ Watson's Before I Go to Sleep and Christopher Nolan's cult classic Memento, Megan Goldin's Stay Awake is an electrifying novel that plays with memory and murder. Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she's dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers--a stranger who now lives in her apartment and forces her out in the cold. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it's missing, and in its place is a bloodstained knife. That's when she sees that her hands are covered in black pen, scribbled messages like graffiti on her skin: Stay Awake. Two years ago, Liv was living with her best friend, dating a new man, and thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she's lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers. Catching a glimpse of the local news, she's horrified to see reports of a crime scene where the victim's blood has been used to scrawl a message across a window, the same message that's inked on her hands. What did she do last night? And why does she remember nothing from the past two years? Liv finds herself on the run for a crime she doesn't remember committing as she tries to piece together the fragments of her life. But there's someone who does know exactly what she did, and they'll do anything to make her forget--permanently. A complex thriller that unfolds at a breakneck speed, Stay Awake will keep you up all night"--
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I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. (via Netgalley)
Another fast paced read from this author that I enjoyed. I didn't intend to read the whole thing in one sitting but it was hard to put down.
3.25
I am very conflicted with the rating I want to give this coz there were some parts I liked and some parts I didn't.
It started off with a bang and I was really invested at first like imagine having to wake up every morning and you don't remember anything that happened in the past 2 years of your life....a very chilling thought. So I was really interested in seeing how everything was gonna happen. But then I kept getting so annoyed with Liv, coz with every opportunity she had to get to know what happened to her she either ran away or she did something so idiotic that messed everything up because if I was in the same situation as her I would do anything and everything to try and find out what was happening to me.
Some parts were so repetitive and I knew what Liv was gonna do even before she did it because she just kept making the same mistake over and over again.
Also the ending, the thing that actually happened; I saw it coming abt a 100 pages before it was actually revealed and I didn't think the story would go there but it did and that was also very underwhelming.
With that being said what I really enjoyed in the book was the perspectives we got from the detectives. I wish we had more books with them because it was fun and interesting to follow along the case with them.
I always enjoy the books Megan Goldin writes and this was no different. She has a way of creating complex characters and story lines that I don't find in other thriller/mystery novels. There were so many red herrings and I didn't see the final plot twist coming. I really liked how the main character's backstory was slowly sprinkled in throughout the novel.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an eBook copy to review.
this was such a captivating thriller. i loved the twist and turns so much. the end reveal had me absolutely shocked and i loved the direction this went in. it was slightly repetitive but it wasn't a super big drawback