Stay Awake: A Novel
A murder she doesn’t remember committing. A killer she doesn’t remember meeting. Megan Goldin’s Stay Awake is an electrifying novel that proves memory can be deadly.
Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers—a stranger who claims to live in her apartment. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it’s missing. In its place is a bloodstained knife. Her hands are covered in scribbled messages, like graffiti on her skin: STAY AWAKE.
Two years ago, Liv was thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she’s lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers. Catching a glimpse of the local news, she’s horrified to see reports of a crime scene where the victim’s blood has been used to scrawl a message across a window, similar to the message that’s inked on her hands. What did she do last night? And why does she remember nothing from the past two years? Liv finds herself on the run for a crime she doesn’t remember committing. But there’s someone who does know exactly what she did, and they’ll do anything to make her forget—permanently.
A complex thriller that unfolds at a breakneck speed, Megan Goldin's Stay Awake will keep you up all night.
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *Stay Awake* by Megan Goldin is a gripping thriller centered on Liv Reese, whose memory resets each time she sleeps, creating a compelling...
But every time I remembered I was in the process of reading this insanity, I picked it up and would fall down the rabbit hole of the plot line. Figuring out Liv’s story WITH Liv simultaneously made me want to keep reading and whole also feeling terrible for Liv once we get a new crumb of extra context into her previous life. Because I didn’t know what to expect at every turn, who the real villain was until the very end, and rooting for Liv to get back to a sense of normalcy, it was easy for me to lose track of all time and place and fall into this world where I was invested in the character of Liv Reese and the mystery surrounding her.
Due to the fact that when I found the motivation to read, I could NOT put the book down, I usually take that as a sign of a great thriller. I would love for there to be a spin-off of Halliday and Lavelle solving crimes together because I loved their rapport and the old dog and scrappy young detective dynamic the two of them had.
Overall, this is one I highly recommend!
Stay Awake is the third book I’ve read by the author Megan Goldin. I was intrigued by the description of a woman who loses her memory every time she falls asleep, and while the book was entertaining, I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as her previous two books, The Escape Room and The Night Swim.
“Starbursts blink from streetlights like they’re sharing a secret as I wake to find myself slumped in the back of a cab, without any recollection of how I got here, or where I’m going.”
Goldin grabs our attention from the first line, planting the reader right in the middle of the action. She also manages to keep Stay Awake from growing repetitive despite the fact that Liv has to rediscover events from the past two years each time she falls asleep. She spends the novel fighting to stay awake, to figure out exactly how she’s involved in a murder and with a victim she doesn’t remember. The novel jumps between Liv’s point of view in the past and present, as well as the present point of view of detectives investigating the murder, until the two time lines finally converge toward the end of the novel.
Goldin kept me guessing as characters and plot points were revealed, but I did feel a bit underwhelmed with the ending. There were a few things that were too coincidental for me, as well, and I often wondered how Liv was managing to avoid being found with the poor decisions she continued to make.
I feel like maybe Stay Awake could have been polished a bit more, but many other reviewers disagree with me, so it could also just be that Thillers are not my typical genre. I do tend to find it difficult to go from reading books where the reader is very connected with their main character to books with an unreliable lead. It’s definitely not what I read most often.
Overall, Stay Awake kept me turning pages, interested, and curious, and that’s what’s really important, right?!
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy.
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