This author has done it again with another hit. This book kept me guessing me from start to finish and I couldn’t put it down. It follows Liv who wakes up unable to remember anything and has the words stay awake with other writing over her hands. She soon realizes that she is suspected of murder and must try to follow the clues as her memory resets every time she sleeps. This book is definitely a must read that you will easily finish in a few days.

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Another great hit by Megan Goldin. You will not want to put this one down! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.

What a fantastically dizzying ride. I loved all the unexpected twists and turns and the excitement of not knowing. Stay Awake will keep readers awake until the very last page. I highly recommend this edge-of-your-seat mystery.

This was a very entertaining and thrilling read! Every time Liv wakes up she remembers nothing. She seems to be stuck to her life of 2 years ago. Doesn't remember getting into the taxi, buying a train ticket, being engaged to Ted or where her best friend and roommate Amy is. She returns to their apartment to strangers living there, her cat is gone and all her call attempts to Amy go unanswered. She wakes one morning holding a bloody knife, a picture of her on the news and wanted by the cops.
Great story, it becomes predictable as you read through but it's soo engaging you can't wait to find out more with every page.
A stalker, a love trangle, an ensomniac and 2 muder scenes. 4⭐️ mystery/thriller

Thank you @netgalley and St. Martin Press, for the opportunity to review this copy for my honest opinion.

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I really enjoyed this book! I didn’t know what to think about this one, the comparison to Memento was extremely enticing to me and this being my first advanced copy of a book just made the experience so awesome! The chapters would leave you wanting more and I kept going and going to read more! I had to know what happens! If I didn’t have to go to work everyday, I would’ve finished this in like two days, it was really good, the outcome was very satisfying and I would totally read more by this author!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for the ARC copy of Stay Awake! I read a lot of thrillers and have trouble finding books that actually thrill me and get my heart rate up. At first, I did not really enjoy this book, mainly because I do not enjoy police procedurals and half this perspective is from law enforcement, but the second half really picked up the pace. The writing was choppy in parts but still a fun read. Loved the short chapters, and found Liv’s sections very entertaining. This was like a dark take on the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore movie 50 first dates. I enjoyed this fast paced thriller and would recommend it to anyone wanting a more cinematic, action packed read.

This was such a good one! It grabbed me on Thanks first page and I was HOOKED. It was told in multiple POVs and different times and I think it made even more enticing. I felt like I was right there with Liv helping her figure out her story and why she couldn't remember anything. I literally couldn’t put it down!

There were a lot of moving parts to this book, but Megan made it easy to follow. I had a great time reading this and keeping up with all the connecting dots! I was racing to the end to figure out all the answers. I thought i knew what happened and I was wayyy off!

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC. Out August 9, 2022!

A dark version of Fifty First Dates. Liv loses her memory every time she wakes up and this time she didn’t remember the last two years and she’s the main murder suspect. I was pleasantly surprised by this! I didn’t guess the ending, but it was still believable. I wanted a bit more information about all the characters though

Wow! This book had me hooked from the very first page. This book is about a woman named Liv who suffers a rare form of amnesia which makes her lose her memory of the last two years every time she falls asleep.  As she tries to recall what is happening, she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation.

This book switches between multiple timelines and two different narrators which I sometimes find confusing. In this case, each was very compelling and added to the story. There were times some things started to get a little repetitive but that was because of the amnesia that Liv suffered.

This was an engrossing, suspenseful, page turner that I could not put down. This was the best psychological thriller I have read in a long time - highly recommend.  Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

Thank you to both #NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me an advance copy of Megan Goldin’s latest thriller, Stay Awake, in exchange for an honest review.

Much like its namesake, #StayAwake is a fast-paced thriller that will have readers turning the pages long after midnight. While fairly predictable and not the most innovative plotline, it is entertaining and leans closer to a 4-star rating for this genre than a three. I have never read any books written by the author before Stay Awake, but I will definitely be keeping one eye open for her next release.

Unlike other reviewers, I was not immediately hooked from the start. I warmed up to the idea around chapter thirteen when it starts to pick up the pace. The story is primarily set in #NYC and switches not only between the past and the present, but also the vantage points of the protagonist, Liv, and two NYPD homicide detectives. The author does a great job fleshing out Liv and Detective Halliday, which is saying a lot since most novels in this genre tend to ignore law enforcement characters and use them as a device to move the plot forward.

Without revealing too many details, the story opens with Liv waking up in a cab two years into the future from her last memory. She gives the driver her address, but new tenants have moved into her apartment. The new tenants reluctantly allow her to use their landline to call her best friend/roommate Amy and semi-boyfriend Marco, but neither one is answering their phones.

After being kicked out of her former apartment, she reaches into her coat for phone and wallet to discover a bloody knife and shirt instead. That is when she notices her handwriting scribbled over her body. She decides to follow the messages she has written to herself and ends up at a bar called, Nocturnal, where everyone seems to know who she is already. A TV in the bar catches her attention when it displays a local news broadcast about a murder, which involves bloody handwriting that eerily looks similar to her own.

With no memories and no friends to call to remind her what happened, she begins to suspect that she is somehow caught up in the murder case. What starts as a frightened woman trying to glue the puzzles pieces of her life back together gradually becomes a nightmare—Liv realizes she is a suspect in a gruesome homicide.

Some of the threads are never fully developed, however, the main story is and that is the one that matters the most. For instance, the detective mentions her friend from the army several times and it seems as if that is an important detail, but ends up just being backstory. Unless the novel is meant to be part of a crime thriller series, which I highly doubt given the state of the characters by the ending of the novel and the tidy conclusion.

Overall, I would round this up to a 3.5 rating because it is better than your average thriller and the plot does capture the reader’s curiosity all the way through to the end.

If you’re looking for a cancel your plans to read, hooked from page one psychological thriller, this is it.

Liv Reese has a rare form of amnesia that leaves her without her memory of the last two years every time she falls asleep. After waking up holding a bloody knife with no memory, she’s left to piece together the puzzle of the last two years and the murder of her best friend and boyfriend. This book was a suspenseful story that takes place over 24 hours with an unreliable narrator that left me constantly wondering who to trust.

4.5 stars

Liv wakes up one day and finds out she has no memory of the last two years. All she knows is that she has written notes all over her arms and is in possession of a bloody knife. Later in the day, she finds out a man was murdered and it looks like she is the prime suspect.

I'm not a huge fan when books constantly change every chapter from a flashback to the present. However, I think it works here because then you are left turning the pages to find out why Liv cannot remember anything. it was a pretty fast paced book right from the first chapter. It did take me a bit to really get into the book. I enjoyed the mystery aspect and kind of knew who the killer was.

“Propulsive” is a word i see used quite often to describe thrillers, and let me say that’s EXACTLY what i got from this!
I recommend going into this one as blindly as possible. Goldin immediately puts you inside the very confused mind of Liv and we uncover clues and hints along with her. It reminded me a lot of the movie Memento, and i REALLY could not put this book down!

Suspenseful read for sure. The off-putting thing for me was lack of character development. The premise was intriguing, a woman who has woken up in a cab and can't remember anything from the past two years. It started offf strong but I felt it really lost me and I struggled to finish it.

Stay Awake
by Megan Goldin (Goodreads Author)
89850303
Lori Martin's review Mar 21, 2022 · edit
it was amazing

Imagine waking up in the back of a cab with no current memories, only memories that are 2 years old or older. That's the start of this engrossing book by Megan Goldin. This book will have you rooting for Liv Reese, the main character, who can't remember anything current if she falls asleep. Someone doesn't want her to remember and is after her. Liv Reese tries to constantly stay awake as she doesn't know who to trust. This book is outstanding and my current fav by Megan Goldin. Don't start this book if you've only got a little time because you won't be able to put it down. A 5 star rating of excellence.

This was one of my most anticipated releases for 2022 and I was so excited to receive an ARC so thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley! I loved this book and give it 4.5 stars.

The plot for this one is a little out there: our protagonist, Liv, wakes up with no memory of the past two years, a bloody knife in her pockets and messages scrawled across her skin with phrases like "STAY AWAKE" We then learn that the same phrase was written on a window at a murder scene, with the victim's blood. The book focuses on two separate, but intertwined mysteries: who murdered the victim and what happened to Liv that she can't seem to remember the last two years.

You need to suspend your disbelief for this book a little bit but I didn't mind. We learn about the memory loss immediately and it's a well fleshed out plot point so it didn't feel tricky like so many books with this trope. I had no clue what was going on for the first third of the book but Goldin does a fantastic job of slowing revealing each piece of the puzzle. I read this book in less than a day because I was SO glued to the page. The story takes plenty of twists and turns that are executed flawlessly - just enough clues that I could make some guesses on where everything was headed but held back enough that I was still surprised each time. I'm not a big re-reader but I think I'll end up reading this one again to find the clues I missed.

The only criticism I have (that prevents me from giving an elusive 5 star review) is that I wasn't crazy about the ending. It wrapped up too quickly and personally, I didn't think the ending was a sufficient explanation for everything that happened. I think readers are supposed to read between the lines as to the murderer's motivations but there were other events/strange things (trying my best to avoid any kind of spoilers!) that weren't explained just by revealing the killer. I'm still confused on a few things so I can't wait for this book to release and I can discuss with others!

I love when a mystery/thriller novel grabs me from the very first page and Megan Goldin’s latest book Stay Awake definitely came through (big time)! It’s been a long time since I read a novel that had pacing so incredibly fast! I was initially a little confused as to the direction the characters/storyline were heading, but trust and believe that will all sort itself out! As with all Megan Goldin’s novels, I found this 5 star gem it hard to put down—love that! I highly recommend Stay Awake to all mystery/thriller fan!

This book will make you "Stay Awake" as in I stayed up all night because I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!

Such an intense thriller, with an unreliable narrator that will keep you guessing page after page.

Another amazing read by Megan Goldin

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin follow our protagonist, Liv Reese, as she tries to figure out what is going on with her life. The biggest obstacle? Liv forgets everything that has happened the last two years every time she falls asleep. Liv tries to solve the mystery of her memory by staying highly caffeinated and just when she is close to an answer, she falls asleep from exhaustion only to lose all the progress she has made. Someone else lives in her old apartment. When she calls her friends, strangers answer the phone. When she goes to a bar she has never entered before, the bartender knows her drink of choice. She has notes written all over her hands in her handwriting telling her to Stay Awake! Liv needs to find out what is happening, and fast. Because there has also been a murder and Liv is a suspect.

This book reminded me of why I absolutely love thrillers. This book blends the ideas behind the movies 50 First Dates and Memento with the memory loss and the idea of making notes about everything to help Liv know what she needs to do. I found myself unable to put this book down. Between the mystery the police were trying to solve and the thrilling elements of Liv trying to put together what is going on, this book was a ride from start to finish.

There is one thing in thrillers that I really despise most times and that is an unreliable narrator. Whether they are unreliable because they have been drinking and can’t be trusted as useful or if they are just withholding information from the reader that will come out at a very convenient point in the story, I usually cannot stand it. But I really loved this book because of it. The reader is unraveling the mystery with Liv. You don’t know who you can trust because Liv doesn’t know who to trust. It was so well done.

I will say that I did guess the reveal at the end but that doesn’t take away from the story at all. The author also doesn’t hand feed the reader every single way that the plot threads connect. I think that everything was wrapped up really well but I think some people may not take the time to think about why everything is wrapped up without having a character say “oh this was happening because of that which lead to this and that.” I am someone who appreciates when an author allows the reader to puzzle stuff together so I really enjoyed it.

I can see this book being one that a lot of people talk about and I cannot wait to see it.

This book, about a woman who loses her memory every time she falls asleep, reminded me a lot of the movie Memento. I loved the disorienting feeling of not knowing what has happened in her past and whether or not she can be trusted.

I really like how the POV switches between our unreliable narrator Liv, and the detective working a homicide case. Through the detective's investigation, the reader can piece together some of Liv's movements over the last few weeks.

The way the reader couldn't fully trust Liv because she couldn't trust herself, really added to the suspense. I thoroughly enjoyed this roller coaster thriller, and was surprised with how it ended!