Before I Go To Sleep

Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson -359 pages

Book Blurb:

‘As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me …’ Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love—all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine’s life.

My Review: 3 stars

This book came with so many recommendations from friends that I hate to rate this with just 3 stars. Although the pages were turning quickly and the plot kept moving, I felt the story was just too predictable. There were too many holes that didn’t add up, too many secrets kept with her only confidants and some of it just seemed so far fetched. I didn’t even like the main character who woke up each day anew with no memories. The book The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa was a much finer story about continual memory loss. It did earn 3 stars based on the page turner aspect and that I found myself thinking about and examining my own memories and what it would be like to be in her position.

Quotes I liked:

What are we, if not an accumulation of our memories?”

– “We’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it.”