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I walk on a road lush with dreams,
a road of forgotten and veiled dreams,
sometimes slowly, sometimes gaily,
sometimes lost, sometimes profound,
I walk a road of unknown mysteries,
fervently finding my way through the endless path.....

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Navigating through amnesia...Before I go to sleep- A Book Review


Before I Go to Sleep is the debut novel of writer S. J Watson.

source: www.sarahmalikdelhi.blogspot.com

The story revolves around a lady called Christine Lucas, who suffers from a peculiar kind of amnesia. Wherein, she forgets all what has happened to her in the past or throughout the day, basically both short and long term memory loss as soon as she sleeps. 

The story is being narrated in the first person by the protagonist Christine Lucas and the narration is quite gripping. 

Another character is Christine Lucas's doctor called Dr. Nash who initially calls as a stranger and introduces Christine as her doctor also telling her not to tell Ben (Christine's husband) anything about their conversations. 
Dr. Nash asks Christine to read the journal and then to contact him should she want to continue with their work. This happens every morning since Christine is unable to remember anything. 

Ben, who is shown as Christine's husband is a teacher in nearby school who appears to be quite supportive to this peculiar kind of amnesia that Christine suffers from. 

The story proceeds in flashes of memory that Christine gets throughout various parts of the story which she notes down in her journal, reading them every morning. 

These flashes ultimately lead her to the truth of her amnesia. What or who lies behind her condition etc. 

Before I go to sleep comes out as an fine thriller. Some parts however get repetitive as Christine wakes up everyday with complete memory loss and narrates similar surroundings etc. 
Also, the unfolding of events do navigate through the mind of a patient suffering from amnesia but at times things appear to be all juggled up and weird. 

FAVOURITE CHARACTER- There are no characters which are worth being remembered not even the protagonist, Christine Lucas herself. 

FAVOURITE LINES -

1. "We’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it".
2. "There are memories I am better off  without. Things better lost forever".
3. "What are we, if not an accumulation of  our memories?"
4. "It's so difficult, isn't it? To see what's going on when you're in the absolute middle of something? It's only with hindsight we can see things for what they are".

VERDICT- 
In my opinion, Before I go to sleep is a good navigation through the mind of a amnesic patients, something that did interest a medico like me but it didn't appeal  much to me as thriller. 

The ending somehow got expected due to lack of characters and movie-ish to be frank. 

All in all it could be a one time read or you could skip it. But don't expect much from this as a 'thriller'.

RATING - 2.5/5 





This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

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