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

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Paperback Release Date: February 7, 2012
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Before I Go To Sleep is the story of Christine, a woman who has both anterograde amnesia, which is the ability to create new memories and retrograde amnesia, which is the ability to recall one’s past. Because of this, every morning she starts over, her mind a blank slate. She wakes up not knowing where she is and who she is. Her husband must explain it to her every day – that she had an accident that left her with amnesia, he is her husband, etc.

Christine starts working with a doctor who wants to help reverse her amnesia. The therapy mostly involves her keeping a journal of what happens to her every day and then reading it every morning to fill herself in on who she is and what she’s been doing. Her husband doesn’t approve of her being in therapy so she must do this in secret. Along the way, she discovers some secrets herself.

I’ll admit that enjoying this book requires some suspension of disbelief. It’s told in first person from Christine’s view point so the narrative of the book is her journal entries. Her journal entries are much more descriptive and detailed than you’d expect but the fact that she was a writer before the accident explains some of that. And it would be a pretty awful book to read if the journal entries weren’t written well. I thought this was the best device to use so that the story could be told in first person. It helped me identify with Christine’s confusion. I was really confused too. In fact, I was surprised at how many twists were in this book. Several times I thought I had everything figured out but I never actually did.

I loved this book – it kept me on the edge of my seat. I couldn’t stop thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it, going over everything in my mind, trying to figure the mysteries out. A movie adaptation of Before I Go To Sleep was recently released, starring Nicole Kidman. I’m interested to see how this story translates to the screen. I think it would be very hard to do. I definitely recommend the novel.