Erin S. (nantuckerin) reviewed on 3/27/2013 + 158 more book reviews

Before I Go to Sleep is one of the best things I've read this year. From the very first page, I knew it was going to be one of those books you just can't put down, and S.J. Watson did not disappoint.

This tense thriller introduces Christine, an amnesiac whose memory resets every night while she sleeps. Some mornings, the 47-year-old wakes thinking she's a college student -- on others, she rouses and believes she is even younger. She never remembers her husband, Ben, who seems to love her very much and who has built his life around her care and comfort. She has no memory of her career accomplishments or what has happened to all her family and friends. Most of her adult life is a total blank slate.

Then, Christine get a phone call from a man who claims to be her doctor, and who urges her to go to the closet, open a shoebox, and recover a diary she has been keeping without Ben's knowledge, as part of treatment she's sought behind her husband's back. Through her own journal entries, we as readers learn Christine's secrets as she does, and unravel the mystery of her condition -- and her strange marriage -- through flashbacks of recovered memories.

I loved this book, and can't believe it is a first effort by the author. Watson masterfully doles out small details of Christine's life and meticulously builds a mystery with a twist I truly didn't see coming. And that's my favorite kind.

Christine is very likeable and sympathetic as a main character -- although she's not reliable, I wanted to believe her, and I was frantic to put together the pieces of her story. It's creative and very "different" from most other books in this genre, and I look forward to recommending it to friends who like a suspenseful mystery as much as I do.

I hope this is only the first of many books by Watson, and will eagerly await her next release.

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