On My Nightstand - Before I Go To Sleep

Before I Go To Sleep – by S. J. Watson

On the back cover:
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 she 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 had been looking forward to this book for quite some time.

I heard about it over a year ago, and just never got around to reading it myself.  Then it was picked by both book clubs I am in, and I made a vow to try and read book club books closer to the actual meeting date.  I read so much that sometimes I read the book months ahead of time and then it is hard to remember all the details when discussing the book.

Anyway, I finally got around to reading it – and loved it.
I loved that I could figure out some things that were going on, I guess correctly, and then there were other things that I never saw coming.

You might feel like this story has been done before (Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler movie, 50 First Dates, and most recently The Vow), but trust me, this book is so, so much better.

I loved it, and I am sure you will too.

My rating: 4 ½ out of 5.