Saturday, April 30, 2011

Just Jennifer

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson (Harper, June 2011)

We’ve all had days we would like to forget, but what if every morning when you woke up, you had no memory of your life before that moment? Each morning when Christine wakes up she doesn’t know the man sleeping beside her (her husband), doesn’t recognize the forty-seven year old woman staring back at her from the mirror and has no memory of the house she is living in although the man, Ben says it is their house and they are very much in love. Ben patiently takes Christine on a tour of their house each morning and leaves her notes and pictures identifying things and a list of things she might want to do during the day. Christine receives a phone call each morning from a doctor who says they are working together on Christine’s memory loss and directs her to her closet where she finds a journal she has been keeping. As readers read the journal along with Christine, they learn more about her condition and the memories she is beginning to recover during the day that disappear in the night. Through the journal, Christine is getting closer to the truth of what occurred that made her lose her memory and the truth about the life she is currently living and who is lying to her and who she can trust. This book takes psychological thrillers to a whole new level. It is fast-paced, believable and has an element of “what if something like this every happened to me?” Readers will unravel Christine’s life with her and are sure to be as surprised as Christine when the final page is turned.

No comments: