Before I go to Sleep by SJ Watson

***

Not the best book I’ve read recently, but thankfully I stuck with it, because the ending (despite appearing rushed and accidently inconclusive) was something else!

Before I go to Sleep is written in the style of a journal kept by amnesiac Christine, a 40-something year old trying to piece her forgotten life together. Christine is undergoing new treatment in the hope that she will be able to remember some of the memories of her old life after a near fatal accident (or so she is told) left her only knowing her name and life up to her early twenties at the most. But how can she possibly remember important or even trivial parts of her life, when she can’t even recall yesterday?

What follows is a mixture of confusion, romance, lies, violence and friendship all with extremely sinister undertones. The reader is placed in a position where they think they know most of the facts, well as much as Christine has noted throughout the journal, and then the comfort that both the reader and narrator had only just begun to enjoy, is ripped out from underneath in one violent burning motion!

Throughout the reader is given hints about Christine’s less than angelic past, but it all comes to a head when she starts to remember the affair she had. As the novel progresses Christine’s story becomes more and more disturbing and the ‘big reveal’ will truly send you reeling.

Personally I could not relate to the main character, therefore I guess, I did not enjoy reading it as much as I have other books. I can’t really write too much about this book without fear of spoiling it, so with what little morsels I have given you, make your choice – to read or not to read!

Where She Went by Gayle Forman

****

Where She Went is the equally emotional follow up to If I Stay, the book in which we are first introduced to Mia and Adam, the perfect teenage romance. (At this point I suggest if you have not read If I Stay, go away and do so, it is simply amazing.) So when I saw this book released there was no argument about buying it, especially with the line ‘If you had a second chance at first love…would you take it?’ to reel you in and keep you there.

It has been three years since we left Mia and Adam, and life has drastically changed for both of them. Adam has shot to fame with his band Shooting Star, and is in New York preparing for the tour of their third album. Likewise Mia has become a success in the classical music world, graduating from Julliard early so that she can also tour. However most surprising change of all is the fact that they are not together. We find that just after she left for Julliard Mia brutally cut ties with Adam, arguably leaving him in as a critical state as she had been after the crash.

For this book the reader enters the mind of Adam and sees the strange and wonderful hours before he leaves for London, and the hand Fate decides to play. Coincidentally Mia and Adam meet again, which leads to a night exploring New York City and the lives and minds of the two separated young lovers. This is the chance for the reader, along with Adam, to have 3 years’ worth of questions answered. But do not expect it to be an easy ride. If you were fond of Adam after finishing the first book, prepare to be heartbroken. He has become a stereotypical rock-star: girls, temper, drugs. He is everything he did not want to be.

Throughout reading the story I felt a resounding feeling of sorrow for Adam and the way losing Mia has affected him. We are treated to glimpses of the old Adam we know and love, but it is still not enough, and it only adds to the frustration I feel towards him. And as a dedicated reader I feel betrayed as though I had been tricked into liking and respecting him in the previous book when now he has turned into such a ‘guy’, to use Mia’s words. Conversely he also strikes me as being a lost little boy, overwhelmed and ready to be swallowed alive by the enormity of fame and the fact that he has to face it alone, having seemingly disconnected himself from everyone around him.

Being inside Adam’s head is discomforting to start with, especially for those familiar with Mia’s narration in ‘’If I Stay’’. He is conflicted by everything he says and does. He thinks one thing and says another, but furthermore he acknowledges this, and the demons distracting him. So when Mia shows up it is easy to see her as a saviour, and in some ways she is.

This is just another cathartic book from Forman with the power to reduce you to tears before forcing a relieved smile, when your emotions no longer have control over what just hit them.