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Before I Go To Sleep: A Novel [Kindle Edition]

S. J. Watson
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,244 customer reviews)

Print List Price: $7.99
Kindle Price: $5.06 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: $2.93 (37%)
Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers

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Book 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.


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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2011: Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis--all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion. What kind of accident caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted? At the heart of S. J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep is the petrifying question: How can anyone function when they can't even trust themselves? Suspenseful from start to finish, the strength of Watson's writing allows Before I Go to Sleep to transcend the basic premise and present profound questions about memory and identity. One of the best debut literary thrillers in recent years, Before I Go to Sleep deserves to be one of the major blockbusters of the summer. --Miriam Landis

Review

“Watson’s debut novel unwinds as a story that is both complicated and compellingly hypnotic. . . . Watson’s pitch–perfect writing propels the story to a frenzied climax that will haunt readers long after they’ve closed the cover on this remarkable book.”

Product Details

  • File Size: 602 KB
  • Print Length: 363 pages
  • Publisher: HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (June 14, 2011)
  • Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004GUSG4M
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Lending: Not Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,647 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

This book has a great story line and is very well written. J. Garrett  |  290 reviewers made a similar statement
Started the book in the morning and could not put it down till I read the last page. Constance E. Mollo  |  212 reviewers made a similar statement
I found it slow paced, repetitive, implausible, and predictable way before the end. barney  |  170 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
783 of 811 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
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. But beyond pleasurable reading, the novel had me questioning what I'd want in a similar circumstance. Is it always best to know the truth? After all, ignorance is bliss. When you can't distinguish memory from fantasy, can you start to build a meaningful life? If you can never reciprocate in a relationship, how much allegiance do your loved ones owe you? When is a condition so problematic as to be insurmountable? The novel's greatest strength is that it really challenges the notion of reality. Is it a finite construct or something a little less tangible? Watson digs to the very soul of Christine and it is fascinating, disturbing, and memorable.

The last time I had such a visceral response to a novel, it was Emma Donoghue's "Room" (one of my three favorite books of 2010). I felt the frustration, anguish, fear, and desperation. Any story that can elicit such reaction or emotion out of my cold dead heart earns my unequalled respect. Again, I'm not saying that the novel is perfect--its central mystery is not as mysterious as I might have liked--but the journey to the that truth is devastatingly heartfelt and fraught with peril and uncertainty. Again, I loved this book! And for getting inside my brain so completely, I have to give it the highest ranking from a purely emotional level. Try it! KGHarris, 4/11.
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205 of 219 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
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. The truth, or Christine's perception of what was true, was constantly shifting and changing, yet I as the reader was able to hang on the roller coaster ride.

Who do you trust when you have no recollection of what people are telling you? Despite being nearly incapacitated with her amnesia, somehow Christine painstakingly pieces together a fragmented picture of what happened and what is being kept from her by those she's supposed to trust - her husband and her doctor - both of whom are telling her different versions of her life. To make things even more complicated, what they're telling her also contradict the few puzzling memories that eventually resurface.

Christine's sanity and identity are assaulted every time she wakes up but something is horribly wrong beyond Christine's amnesia and how it has wrecked her life. How Christine manages to uncover the devastating and shocking truth inspite of being unable to rely upon her own recollection is a marvel of storytelling. Before I Go to Sleep is not a perfect, airtight book - it has some logical holes - but I never saw what was coming; I was as stunned as Christine!
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154 of 168 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An Absolute Smash! May 12, 2011
Format:Paperback
Hard to believe it's a debut novel, SJ Watson's Before I Go to Sleep has garnered star reviewed from Kirkus and Booklist and was in development to be adapted into a movie before the book was even released. And though I've read some excellent books this year, I haven't come across a novel that would appeal to so many readers. This book has all the makings of an absolute block buster.

It begins as a twenty something Christine wakes up in a stranger's bed unable to remember how she got there. She quickly learns some disturbing facts: the stranger is her husband, Ben who she can't remember at all, she is middle aged and has forgotten most of her life, and she suffers from a rare form of amnesia where she can't retain memories from day to day. As she's trying to cope with all of this information, she stumbles across something more bizarre--a journal where she's been recording her recollections of recent day's events beginning with the title page on which she has scrawled, "Don't Trust Ben!"

And then the story is told through Christine's journal offering the readers an over the shoulder roller coaster ride as Christine tries to determine what has happened to her, and who if anyone she can trust. The dread mounts until the book's messy conclusion. Because it's so well plotted to say Watson's story is "gripping" is an understatement, it is simply breathtaking. It's a hell of a book, and is sure to be a hell of a movie. Highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Scary!
I was scared that this kind of obsessive behavior exists at all. But I was more scared that the medical services in the uk could be so lax as to allow what happened to happen. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Joseph Kanyike
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent storytelling
As a fan of the movie Momento, I was drawn to the premise of this book. It has a slow start for the first few pages, but then it rolls along with twists and turns so you don't know... Read more
Published 1 day ago by C. Solly
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent twist
It started out a bit slow for my taste, but when it picked up, I couldn't put it down. I thought I had the mystery figured out, but I wasn't even close.
Published 1 day ago by R_Reidl
4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Mystery
This book is packed with suspense. The impulse to read one more chapter is great. This would be a great vacation choice.
Published 4 days ago by Avid Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Novel I've read in many years
I loved this story because it made me think not only about people who have had head injuries due to accidents, but about people who wake up everyday in a convalescent home or... Read more
Published 4 days ago by Frenchy721
5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT BOOK!
I can't say enough about this book. I really, really enjoyed it! A great book on amnesia with alot of suspense. I did not see this particular ending coming! Loved it!
Published 5 days ago by atabarac
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it.
This was a great read..full of suspense. I would recommend this book as a great one to take on vacation with you
Published 6 days ago by Kristin Averill
4.0 out of 5 stars Can't believe I actually read this before and still couldn't remember...
This sounded quite captivating (well guess it would since I read it before). Realized a bit into it that it was a re-read, but continued reading and it held my attention right up... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Judith B. Mark
4.0 out of 5 stars Slow to start...but gets better
I have read this book over 2-3 weeks now. For a book to grab me to the point of not putting it down, it has to grab me from the start and unfortunately this book just does not... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Yorkslass100
4.0 out of 5 stars good mystery. Quick read
Good story; definitely makes it hard to put down... But I really wanted to know what happened when she wakes up next...
Published 7 days ago by S. Anderson
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More About the Author

S. J. Watson lives in London and worked in the National Health Service for a number of years. In 2009 Watson was accepted into the first Faber Academy Writing a Novel course, a rigorous and selective program that covers all aspects of the novel-writing process. Before I Go to Sleep is the result.

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Kindle Version Too Expensive!
I have found lots of free books for my Kindle. I too refuse to purchase an ebook at a higher price. When I can get this as a library ebook, I might try it.
Jun 25, 2011 by E. I. HOOD |  See all 5 posts
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