I want to tell you guys about my latest read: Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson. This is a pre-loved book. I bought from a friend of mine at the gym for only Php100. While I still have a lot of books I bought from The Big Bad Wolf Books sale earlier this year, I found my interest veering away from my usual chick lits.

Before I Go to Sleep is a psychological thriller.

The Plot

How would you feel if every night that you fall asleep, you wake up in the morning not knowing who you are, where you are and what has happened to your life? I would most likely be scared to sleep. Well that’s Christine’s life.

From Goodreads: Christine wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man. She looks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar, middle-aged face. And every morning, the man she has woken up with must explain that he is Ben, he is her husband, she is forty-seven years old, and a terrible accident two decades earlier decimated her ability to form new memories.

Every day, Christine must begin again the reconstruction of her past. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more unbelievable it seems.

What I Thought of the Book

I was already intrigued with the first few pages of the book as to how the whole story would turn out. Written on her journal was a warning, “Don’t trust Ben”. My eyes widened in surprise when I read those three letter words. Why not trust Ben? This was her husband we are talking about! Why not  trust the man who’s been by her side throughout the ordeal? This man had to endure explaining to her every single day who she was, where she was, what happened to her and who he was in her life?

I think that having someone you can trust is a very important thing when you have amnesia. After all, you’ll be dependent on this person to tell you about the forgotten pieces of your life. It’s a very scary idea to lose a chunk of your life’s memories. Even scarier is the idea that you can’t trust the person you’re living with to tell you the whole truth about you.

I’m not sure what to feel about the book’s ending though. It has a nice ending but I guess I was maybe expecting for more. Then again, perhaps the ending is more realistic. I believe this book took a lot of research just to be made into a story so why should the ending not be as close to reality?
What I’m surprised with is that Goodreads reviews are a mix. I expected it to be a five star book. That’s how I rated this book. Other readers thought it was badly written and that there were a lot of inconsistencies to it. Readers are hard to please! LOL!

Before I Go to Sleep Film Adaptation

I did a quick search on Google and found that this book had actually been turned into a Hollywood movie starring Nicole Kidman in 2014.
Seems like it was a pretty exciting movie to watch to. Don’t think it was shown in the Philippines, was it? I’ll have to find myself a copy of this movie so I can watch and see if the movie adaptation really did do this book justice.

2018 GoodReads Reading Challenge Update

With Before I Go to Sleep now added on to my list of books I’ve finished reading this 2018, that puts my 2018 Goodreads Challenge to:
Have you read this book before or seen the movie?