Tis the season of me accidentally getting approved for a lot of ARCs and now I am scrambling to read them all, oops.
It’s okay though, because after reading a few disappointing books recently, I was stoked to dive into Stay Awake, which turned out to really scratch the itch for a fun, fast, satisfying thriller/drama.
Standard disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book for my honest thoughts. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for early access. The book will be available in August, 2022.
Let’s just get right into it, shall we?
Stay Awake, by Megan Goldin
Plot: The book starts with our main character, Liv Reese, waking up in the back seat of a taxi, with no idea how she got there, or why she has a bloody knife in her pocket (can you IMAGINE??)
When she arrives at her apartment, she expects to find her best friend/roommate, Amy—instead, she finds a strange couple living inside her apartment, and it’s clear that they’ve lived there for a while. Live also realizes that she is missing her phone and her purse, and her hands have messages written on them, informing her that she has to STAY AWAKE.
The last day Liv remembers turns out to be two years in the past—at that point, she was a staff writer for a popular magazine, she had a handsome new boyfriend, and she was living with her very best friend in New York City. But none of that is true anymore, and Liv has not a clue what's happened to her life.
As the story unfolds, we realize that Liv is suffering from memory loss, and every time she falls asleep her memory of the previous two years is wiped clean. This is obviously problematic—especially when it starts to seem like Liv may have been involved in a horrible crime…
Thoughts: Okay, this is kind of like a murder mystery version of 50 First Dates. Basically, Liv has lost her memory of the previous 2 years, and she cannot form new memories—every time she falls asleep, her memory is erased again, bringing her back to a day two years in the past. She leaves herself notes (often written on her hands/arms) to try and retain information about her life, and to remind herself to try and stay awake for as long as possible, lest she fall back into her memory-erasing loop.
I'll say right off the bat that I don't always love the Amnesia Trope—I feel like we get it a lot in mysteries/horror/thrillers, and it’s like…yawn. I get it; it's a convenient plot device, but it has been done to death…so, when I encounter it, I usually go in with a grain of salt.
However, it really worked for me here! I thought that the author did a great job at building tension and introducing the reader to the mystery, through Liv’s eyes. Tropey as amnesia might be, I was totally invested in untangling the story. What happened to make Live lose her memory in the first place? Was she involved in a horrible crime? If not, how did she end up in the back seat of a cab holding a bloody knife?? What happened to her boyfriend and her best friend? WHERE IS HER CAT (unfortunate spoiler alert: we never figure out what happened to the cat).
Overall, I enjoyed the experience of trying to recover Liv's memories alongside her. It is kind of fun that the reader is just as clueless as Liv herself. At some points, the reader even knows more than Liv (she falls asleep and loses information at several points). The suspense is high!
The story is told in two perspectives—one being Liv, and the other being that of Darcy Halliday, a new homicide detective assigned to work the very crime that Liv, apparently, had fled the scene of. The story is also told in multiple timelines (present day, and also "two years ago," ie Liv's life before her memory went blank). I really enjoy stories like this personally, because I like to be able to understand a story from multiple POVs, and I thought the author handled this very well.
Overall, I really did genuinely enjoy reading this one. It is very fast and full of suspense; the whole time my brain was screaming WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?? It was sooo action packed, too—I really didn't feel like there was ever a dull moment; there was something happening in every single chapter. There were several red herrings along the way, all of which I fell for at different points, so kudos to the author on that.
All of that positive stuff being said, the book was not without faults:
First of all, I think in general the story does require a little bit of suspension of reality. As I said, the amnesia stuff is kind of an overused plot device in mysteries/thriller/horror, but it is not immediately a "con" for me. However, I do think that the explanation for what's going on in this story is a little far-fetched—as is, and perhaps especially, Liv's reaction to it.
Like…if I woke up tomorrow and had no memory of the last two years of my life, I would surely be in an absolute panic. I’m talking screaming, crying, throwing up level anxiety. I would certainly go to a hospital, at the very least. Maybe Liv is just chiller than most, but I couldn't help but feel we were missing a realistic reaction here. She just kept kind of rolling with it and I was like…girl, come ON.
Not only that, but I feel like Liv didn't do a whole heck of a lot to try to figure out what had happened to her, or what she'd been up to in the two years that have been eradicated from her memory. She does try to get in touch with her boyfriend and her best friend, but that's about the extent of it. There are surely other avenues she could have tried, other people she could have contacted?
Listen, I talk to about 2 people in my day-to-day, but you best believe that if I suddenly had a huge hole in my memory and I couldn't get in touch with those two people, I'd be trying to get in touch with literally anyone I could—casual friends, acquaintances, family members? I'd google myself? Heck, realistically, my first move would be to hop on social media and find clues that way. To be fair, we do get a scene where she tries to log in to her socials/email but finds that her password is changed, and that's where she drops it. UM? Remember what I said about having to suspend belief in reality?? I'm sorry, but there is not any 20-something woman living in New York City (or anywhere for that matter) would not simply create a new account and launch an FBI level investigation. Prove me wrong.
And look, I get it—we wouldn't have much of a book on our hands if the character simply solved the mystery via a few clicks on the Internet, but still!
All that aside…
I don't want to spoil anything, but I kind of…don’t' feel like we got very much of an explanation about a motivation for the “villain,” in the end. Why they did what they did, etc. For me this is hugely annoying because I feel like a villain without a backstory is kind of pointless—personally, I want to know why they do the things they do, not simply that they did them. I guess we can sort of piece it together, but uh, it seems like an over-the-top reaction to the situation at hand. I cannot go into further detail than that without spoiling, but suffice to say, I wasn’t buying it.
Also, the ending was not a very surprising reveal for me—like, this was definitely not a huge plot twist, though I think it was supposed to be. I wasn't disappointed, per say; I think that in general the book was satisfying, I just think there could have been a lot more development to make the perp make sense.
Last, I felt like the writing in parts was extremely repetitive. Yes, Liv has to "rediscover" stuff over and over throughout the book because of her memory loss, so it makes sense that there is some repetition—but I'm not really talking about that. I'm talking about blurbs of text where I felt like the author had already said the very same thing just a few paragraphs/pages/even lines before; it felt less like a plot device and more like a mistake to me. Caveat: I did read an ARC, so it is possible that this will be edited prior to going to print.
These are all relatively minor issues, though, don't get me wrong! Despite my nitpicking, I did find this book really fun and compelling.
To be concise, there's my pro/con list:
Pros:
1. Total page turner. I had a hard time putting it down and fully was invested in figuring out the mystery.
2. For me personally, multiple POVs and timelines are *chefs kiss,* I love this type of format—especially when done well, which I think it was here! I was equally invested in Liv's perspective as I was in Halliday's, which was cool (as much as I love books that swap perspectives, I usually find myself way more interested in one person than the other, which wasn't really the case here).
3. I felt like the author did a pretty good job at throwing us off the track of the perp (or at least, tried to!) with several red herrings.
4. The book is definitely action packed and suspenseful—I never really felt like there was a dull moment.
Cons:
1. You do need to suspend reality to allow the plot to work; but I recommend just rolling with it, because it's a fun read when you do.
2. Repetition got a little distracting/annoying at times.
3. My huge qualm is that there is not enough explanation/back story on the perp!
This was….3.75 stars for me.
Would recommend for anyone who loves a mystery/thriller that is fun and action-packed, if not entirely realistic.
As I said, the book will be available for sale in August 2022. Add it to your lists for a dark, mysterious, end-of-summer/early fall read!
-Amy