Book review: Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson...

Before I Go To Sleep is a book I'd heard about so much I knew I had to read it. I must admit I had really high hopes for it, after so much hype. It's about a forty seven year old woman who has amnesia. Everyday she wakes up and she doesn't know who, or where she is and each night when she goes to sleep she forgets all over again. The she begins to keep a journal to try and aid her memory, and starts to suspect she can't trust her husband. 

Firstly, I thought the premise of it was a good idea, and can never resist a thriller that has a mysterious blurb. Once I began reading though, I found it painfully slow. For at least the first half I felt like nothing really happened. It was written in the form of Christine's journal, so obviously we were getting repetition of her working everything out again each day. If you are into slow burning books then I'd say this could be a good one for you, but I get too impatient and prefer something on the pacier side!

In terms of the story it started well, but the more you learnt of Christine and her life the more it became unbelievable. Without spoiling anything, the explanation of her amnesia and the types she had were a far stretch of actual amnesia, and it seemed actual science was ignored to aid the story. 

I couldn't help but get frustrated with the glaring plot holes, and obvious clues to the final 'twist' that I don't know how the protagonist hadn't noticed since she'd wrote the journal and re read it every day. I found pretty much most of the characters unlikeable and their actions just didn't ring true to real life- again it seemed like it had just been engineered to work with the twist at the end.

Overall, I found this book slow and predictable. The twist took so long to happen and by the time it did it just kind of fizzled out into a nothing-y ending. If you are into slow burners and you don't mind a bit of conjecture then give it a try, if like me you do then I'd say avoid!

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