‘Before I Go To Sleep’ by S. J. Watson has been one of this year’s most talked about thrillers. The plot centres around Christine who wakes up every day not knowing where she is, who her husband is or what has happened in the last twenty odd years of her life. With her memories of the day being erased every single night, who can she trust?
The concept of memory loss is an interesting one and if it is done convincingly, like in the film ‘Memento’, it can be highly intriguing and enthralling. The first part of the novel seemed very promising. However, as I was reading the book, I found myself wanting to pick holes in the situation that Watson presents to us. For a start, Christine’s journal entries are too detailed to be plausible and are still written in the style of a novel (who has time to write 20+ pages in a day with complete dialogue?). The fact that nobody checked up on Christine after she was discharged from hospital is also barely believable (but then S. J. Watson did work for the NHS so maybe the catalogue of failings in Christine’s care is based on truth…). Continue reading
Having got my craving for chick lit out of my system for another year, I have been reading ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’ by Barry Hines, one of the grittiest books I’ve read in a while. Set in South Yorkshire in 1968 over the course of a single day, fifteen year old Billy Casper finds Kes, a kestrel hawk, who he learns to take care of and confide in. It’s an accurate and poignant portrait of life in northern England at that time (so my mother tells me) and although the book has a very specific setting, it has timeless qualities and themes that would still resonate with disaffected youth today. 
A Little Blog of Books 
You must be logged in to post a comment.