S J Watson: Before I go to Sleep

'Before I go to Sleep'

Imagine waking up every morning not knowing who you are. Imagine that someone else has to remind you of your identity, your past and the people you love, every single day. What if they aren't telling you the truth?

That's the premise of my most recent read, Before I go to Sleep by S J Watson.

The book begins with it's protagonist, Christine Lucas, waking up in bed with a strange man. Carefully extricating herself from him, Christine heads for the bathroom, and is horrified to find that the face in the mirror is much older than it ought to be. The man in the bed wakes and introduces himself as Ben, her husband of 20 years, and patiently explains that she was in a car accident which resulted in a severe and rare case of amnesia, something she will forget all over again once she falls asleep.

On the advice of the Doctor she has been seeing behind Ben's back, Christine has been keeping a journal, though Dr Nash has to call her everyday to remind her where it is. In an attempt to link one day to the next, Christine records her daily movements, conversations and the memories they trigger, and begins to piece together her life before the accident. Her journal gives a very different explanation to the one her husband has been telling her, and even more disturbing are the three words inscribed at the very front of her journal: 'DON'T TRUST BEN'.

The concept of the book is great and I loved the air of suspicion, confusion and desperation it instilled not only in Christine, but also myself. Towards the end, I read the book so quickly that I had to go back and read it again. So urgent was my need to find out the truth that my eyes flew over the pages, only absorbing the main details and not taking any notice of the writing style and pacing. And it was certainly worth the re-read.

Before I go to Sleep is a clever psychological thriller, filled with twists and turns which keep the reader in a state of flux. I thought I had the plot nailed down a number of times only to change my mind and then be proven entirely wrong at the end. You never quite know who or what to believe, and Christine is about as unreliable a narrator as they come, partly due to the majority of the novel's narrative coming from her journal, the validity of which she consistently questions, and, as it turns out, has been heavily edited by Ben. But of course, we don't find that out until later.

I really liked how the book's narrative was arranged, moving from present-day to Christine's journal as she rediscovers it, each entry bringing us ever closer to the truth of her situation and the circumstances that caused it. The journal sections were sometimes repetitive to read, but that is most likely intentional; Christine would have been unable to remember writing any of the previous entries and would have recorded her thoughts and feelings as if they were new to her. 

I did have a slight issue with the very end of the novel, after the shocking, violent confrontation. Christine begins to regain some of her memory, newly able to recall sections of her past which had previously been lost to her; her Doctor suggests that having experienced another trauma might be reversing the effects of the first one, to some extent. To me, that just sounds implausible, but as Watson is the one that worked in the NHS, I shan't argue. Luckily, he avoids a fairytale ending: the book closes with Christine falling asleep, not knowing whether her improving memory is permanent, or whether she will wake up as she has done for the past 20 years - with no recollection of who or where she is.

The story is not without it's flaws, as one would expect from a first novel, but they are minor and didn't impact on the story or my enjoyment of it. Overall, a brilliantly gripping début from S J Watson. I'm looking forward to reading more from him.

8/10.

Robert Galbraith: The Cuckoo's Calling

'The Cuckoo's Calling'

When it first came out that J.K. Rowling had written a book - The Cuckoo's Calling - under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, I wasn't all that bothered. I'd been a massive fan of the Harry Potter books (after a year or so of refusing to read them - they were popular and therefore not for me and my refined 9-year-old tastes), but that J.K. Rowling was their author was just one of those things. So when A Casual Vacancy came out, followed by Cuckoo and The Silkworm under the name Galbraith, why would I be interested? They weren't even the same genre of fiction.

Having just read Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, I was on a bit of a thriller/crime kick so when I came across Cuckoo on the shelves in Oxfam (along with SJ Watson's Before I Go To Sleep and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaiden's Tale - reviews forthcoming), I thought 'Why not?'.

Why not indeed. In fact, I can't give you any reasons not to read The Cuckoo's Calling, there are just so many which suggest you should. Ultimately, this is a brilliant old-school detective novel.

The book follows ex-military policeman turned private detective Cormoran Strike as he investigates the apparent suicide of supermodel Lula Landry at the request of her brother. Beautiful, but troubled, Lula's suicide seems like an open-and-shut case, what with the history of drug abuse and the rocky relationship with a known bad-boy, but as Strike begins to look closer at the events that surrounded that night, he begins to suspect foul play. (Hint: he's right.)

The plot is well thought out and intricately & cleverly planned, filled with little revelations which at the time seem insignificant but can either end up having a serious implications or be complete red-herrings. The pace of the book is perfect; as Strike moves through the book interviewing witness and collecting testimonies he begins to get a picture of what happened to Lula, something which remains a mystery to the reader until the very end of the book. Some have criticised the explanatory ending, where Strike details how he put the clues together and confronts the killer with his findings, but I rather enjoyed it. Having been totally in the dark throughout the book, I liked hearing and recalling where each bit of evidence came from and following Strike's thought process. 

The book is also subtly funny, with sly jabs at social commentary. Lula's birth mother is money-grabbing and out to sell her story (probably to the Daily Mail) and her tortured boyfriend is almost a Pete Doherty parody, though he turns out to be more complex and sympathetic than one expects.

In fact, all of Cuckoo's characters are well rounded and intricately detailed - Strike, though the bastard son of a rock star, has only met his famous father twice and feels out of his depth in the moneyed world he's thrust in to. Despite his size - he's 'a lumbering bear of a man' - and military background, he uses his wits, rather than physical intimidation, to solve the case. His secretary, Robin, though meticulous and precise, is surprisingly resourceful, and as a newly-engaged girl with a solid relationship, is the perfect female companion for Strike, the victim of an obsessive and almost abusive partnership with ex-fiancé, Charlotte. We even learn a great deal about Lula as a person, rather than just a body on a slab, through her emails and the remembrances of her friends and colleagues. Despite being somewhat spoiled, Lula is a girl searching for a family to accept her for who she is, rather than what she represents or how much money she earns.

The Cuckoo's Calling was a pleasure to read, and happily the first in a series of Cormoran Strike crime novels, the next instalment being The Silkworm, released in 2014. I will certainly be looking out for it, and recommend you do too.

8/10.

Audrey Niffenegger: Her Fearful Symmetry

'Her Fearful Symmetry'

Last week I read Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry. Having read and loved The Time Traveler's Wife, when I came across another of her books I was interested to see how it compared. I liked the premise - Twins inheriting a flat from an English Aunt they never knew existed who, though dead and buried, continues to haunt her old home. I'm a sucker for family secrets and ghost stories, so it ticked a lot of boxes for me.

And I really devoured this book. I read it in 2 days.


I really enjoy Niffenegger's style of writing. She's a brilliant story teller and knows how to keep a reader in suspense, which ultimately made me want to keep reading, but having now finished the book, I don't necessarily think that it was the most well crafted story.

Unfortunately the reveal of the big, terrible family secret didn't pack much of a punch as all the characters had known about it all along, just feigning ignorance for the sake of everyone else. I'd also seen it coming pages and pages ago.

But, I think the main issue for me is that, whilst Niffenegger is brilliant at giving psychological insight into the minds of her characters, I'm not sure I really liked the Twins, arguably the centre of the story, which makes it very hard to empathise.

Valentina and Julia are clingy and childish in their twin-ness and really grated on me, which was probably mostly down to personal taste. They're pale, skinny and delicate, insist upon dressing the same at 21 and both still virgins for fear of ever doing something without the other. When Valentina does eventually start trying to spread her wings, something Julia immediately and consistently denies, her solution seems drastic and ridiculous (see spoiler below).

Elspeth, the dead Aunt, and Robert, her lover, are better fleshed out and feel much more real though. Elspeth's sequences as a Ghost trying to find her feet (literally; it takes her a while to re-assume a human form) are particularly enjoyable, and you can feel her boredom as she's trapped in the flat without being able to interact with the living around her.

Robert's grief is palpable and believable, though his budding relationship with Valentina, his dead lover's eerily similar niece, is fairly uncomfortable.

Having said that though, there really was something about the ghostly side of the plot. The ending stuck with me even days later, (Valentina asks Elspeth for her help by temporarily removing her soul from her body, the idea being that Valentina can return to it after her funeral and live life away from Julia, who will think her twin is dead. Elspeth goes along with the ploy but uses it for her own reasons: to steal Valentina's body to be with Robert. Ultimately, everyone ends up miserable - Valentina is stuck in ghost-limbo, Julia and her parents think Valentina is dead and Robert, having assisted in Valentina's deception, is horrified at having unwittingly helped 'kill' a girl so his lover can return to him. In a rare show of backbone, he ends up leaving Elspeth out of disgust, albeit after getting her/Valentina pregnant) and I still haven't quite shaken it off. It was suitably ghoulish and shocking, and gives a lot of food for thought as you think about the layers of the story and what they mean.

I also really enjoyed the side story about the reclusive cross-word setter who lives in the flat upstairs and his overcoming his crippling OCD to win back his wife. Niffenegger's portrayal of the disorder is realistic and sympathetic, and his wife's decision to leave him at the beginning of the book, despite her sincere love for him, is understandable. They continue to love one another from a distance, and the scene where they share a meal on Marijke's birthday - she in a restaurant in Amsterdam, and Martin at home with a microwave dinner - via mobile phones is particularly touching.

I can see why this book didn't receive the critical acclaim The Time Traveler's Wife did - it simply isn't as good - but it is definitely worth a read: It's a good little book about what happens when love dies and being careful about what you wish for. Perhaps I'm only less enthusiastic because I know what Niffenegger can achieve in terms of a well-crafted story.

6/10.