I am so happy I went into this book blind. I don’t think I even read the synopsis before requesting it. This is my type of thriller for sure. It was suspenseful, full of mystery and kept me on my toes with guessing what was going to happen. I loved this concept and it kept me turning pages into the night. Highly recommend this book to you all!

I was excited to read Stay Awake as unreliable narrators are becoming a favorite troupe of mine in mystery and thrillers. They are also very hard to write and keep track of. This book felt like a darker version of 50 First Dates as the main character, Liv, has no recollection of the past two years of her life after she wakes up from sleeping. We get to read about Liv's experience pre= and post-memory loss. Liv also is in a bit of trouble due to the memory loss, so we also get to read this story from the POV from two cops investigating a crime.

I didn't hate the book, but wish there were some more tied up loose ends. Many things I was hoping would get clarified if the book were maybe 10-20 pages longer. Seemed like an abrupt ending to me. A cool concept and worth reading.

Liv Reese is missing the past two years of her life. As in she has no idea what happened during that period of time. One minute she's sitting at her desk at a trendy magazine office and the next she's in the back of a taxi feeling disoriented and lost with two years having passed. Her hands and arms are covered with messages written in ink - Stay Awake, Wake up, Trust no one. When the cab stops at her old brownstone, she rings the bell to get her roommate up; however, the door is answered by an angry stranger yelling at her to go away while claiming to have lived there for some time. Megan's phone is missing as is her purse. If she allows herself to go to sleep, she repeatedly forgets the last twenty-four hours. Each time she wakes up, her mind is a blank slate. She's running on fumes. What's happening to her? Why does she have the feeling she may have done something terrible and her life is in danger?

Detectives Darcy Halliday and Jack Lavelle are working the murder case of a man whose apartment window has the words Wake Up written on them in his blood. A woman was seen entering his apartment with him hours earlier, but later left by the back alley alone. As their investigation progresses, the detectives have reason to suspect Liv is that woman. It's true that the same message is written on her hand, but does that make her a murderer? She hasn't a clue why she wrote it nor why she was carrying a bloody knife wrapped in her bloody shirt that she threw in a garbage can. The story that ensues is convoluted, twisted and tense.

Stay Awake unfolds through two points of view - Liv's and Det. Hallidays. Liv has an illness brought on by an extremely traumatic event that she doesn't remember. This story is told through dual timelines, slowly revealing what happened to Liv two years ago and the police investigation in the present. The action is fast-paced from beginning to end, and the tone is dire. Readers soon realize that someone has reason to silence Liv, and she's a sitting duck with the amnesia rendering her clueless as to who she can trust and who she can't. Goldin brilliantly weaves several viable red herrings into the story, and I'll admit to not suspecting the true murderer until the reveal. When I realized who the culprit was and why, I kicked myself for not figuring it out. But then, that's the magic of Goldin's stories.

While some may find Liv’s story a bit repetitive, it serves to drive home the dilemma she finds herself in each time she awakens with no memory. She's living in a nightmare, on the run from everyone including the police while doing everything possible to stay awake and figure out what's happening to her. I believe the repetitiveness of that part of the story drives home the magnitude of the state she finds herself in while driving the tempo at breakneck speed.

Stay Awake is a mesmerizing, expertly plotted psychological thriller intertwined with an excellent police procedural. The two go hand in hand steadily building the tension all the way to the shocking climax. My understanding is that readers may get to see Det. Halliday in future books, and I must say I'm intrigued. Goldin has penned another dark, ominous thriller with vibes of Memento. Highly recommended to fans of suspense thrillers, mysteries and police procedurals!

**Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Megan Goldin for an ARC of this book!**

Picture a golf course. Pristine, green, serene.

Now picture the same golf course...except the golf course in question is at Bushwood Country Club, and a wily gopher has caused a certain groundskeeper to essentially blow the entire thing up, making the entire course FULL of GIANT holes, thus rendering it unplayable.

In the case of Stay Awake, a THOUSAND plot holes not only tripped me up (on top of near CONSTANT repetition) but made this one nearly unreadable.

Liv has a rather unique and serious condition: she slips into a dissociative fugue state every time she falls asleep, and upon each wake up, she can't remember anything that has transpired (except things that happened prior to two years ago...I think. Confused yet?) This would be hard enough to manage on a regular basis...but for Liv, it becomes so much worse. When she finds herself in a taxicab, ending up at HER apartment and opens the door to two strangers who inform her she doesn't live at that address anymore...and it isn't the first time they've told her this information. She finds messages written all over her arms urging her to STAY AWAKE and has no idea what they mean.

From what Liv knows, she was working at a popular magazine Cultura, living near her bestie Amy, and was in love with hunky Marco, her European beau. However...she learns that these memories are from two years ago...and life has shifted dramatically since then. Now, everywhere she turns, things aren't the same, the people and places have changed, and she sort of drifts aimlessly around NYC looking for answers.

All of this comes to a head when she finds out a murder has occurred...and lo and behold, a message was written on the window at the crime scene...a familiar message. STAY AWAKE. Liv is horrified and assumes she must be involved...and THEN she finds a knife in her possession. As she reaches for her next dose of caffeine, can she outrun the police and figure out exactly WHY it is so important for her to stay awake before she forgets yet again? And where exactly WAS she last night?

After a bad experience with The Escape Room a few years ago, I was a bit leery about diving into another Megan Goldin book, but after hearing rave reviews of her last, I figured I'd give this a shot. I LOVE stories about amnesia and memory (a la Memento and 50 First Dates, both of which handle this subject matter brilliantly) so I figured I couldn't miss with this book. After finishing it, however, I wish I could close my eyes and clear MY memory when it comes to having actually READ the entire thing.

At first, I was intrigued and the story caught my attention. Chapters are short (always a plus for pacing in a thriller, unless they're TOO short) but I quickly realized Liv wasn't the only one who wouldn't be getting any answers: YOU, the reader, aren't going to get any either. As we bounced back and forth from timeline to timeline (this device was especially grating and messy in this book), I couldn't decide what story line was more irritating: Liv's journey (past and present) or the two detectives trying to figure out the case (mostly in the present). The narrative would deal with Liv, and then we'd have to wait for the detectives to 'catch up' to her in terms of timeline, so we had to keep going over and over the same information....which brings me to my next point.

This book is SO, SO, SO (yep, three times!) REPETITIVE. I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over...and not in a good way. It almost felt like Goldin was trying to make the book longer by reiterating the same information or going over the same events in slightly different ways and I just didn't get it. It's fine for Liv to be confused, sure, makes sense, but I was just so annoyed with her that after a while, I didn't care.

I won't get into many of the more specific plot holes as not to spoil anything, but here are a few:

*Liv constantly drinks caffeine to...you guessed it...STAY AWAKE. However, the amount of coffee she consumes is simply insane NOT TO MENTION if she was drinking this amount of coffee she wouldn't have had time to go to all of these locations because she never would have been able to be more than a few feet away from a bathroom.
*Liv keeps a journal to help her remember things...but then doesn't keep the journal with her. (WHY WOULDN'T SHE WRITE THIS ON HER ARM? Or about a thousand other more relevant messages...)
*Liv has people who know about her condition (and AREN'T the bad guys)...yet nobody ACTUALLY helps her or stays with her. She also randomly remembers things that according to her condition, she would have forgotten.
*We hear all sorts of red herring-ish information in the beginning of the book that is then never mentioned again.

While I didn't fully guess the ending, I'm not sure that it mattered to me whether Liv was guilty or innocent or to be honest, what even happened to her. I could go on and on...but at the risk of sounding repetitive, I think I'll do the safe thing...and go get some sleep.

2.5 stars

Once I started this book, I could not put it down! And crime novels tend to have that impact on me as I want to get to the bottom of the case at hand. With this novel, it felt like it would be difficult given Liv’s, the main character, amnesia. I could not imagine waking up each morning thinking I was two years in the past!

I really enjoyed how we get to see Liv’s story in the past and present (which are all separated by chapter with dates) while also seeing where the detectives were at with the case as they got their own chapters too. I appreciate a solid separation of events so that way information doesn’t get lost.

It's not often that a book keeps me up reading but this one sure did! I could not put it down. What would you do if every time you fell asleep you were missing the last two years of your life and couldn't remember anything or anyone when you woke up? You just knew you had to stay awake. This is what the main character faces in this fantastic psychological thriller. This one is not to be missed if you want to be immersed into a chilling ride.

One of my favorite books this year! Kept me on the edge of my seat with suspense.

I cannot even begin to imagine how it would be to be in Liv Reese’s shoes. For the past two years, her memories are erased every time she falls asleep. She does everything she can to stay awake, but a severe lack of sleep wreaks havoc on one physically and mentally.

The book opens with Liv waking up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. But on her hands are inked the words “STAY AWAKE.” The last thing she remembers is being at work and receiving a phone call at her office. When she arrives at her apartment, she discovers strangers living there now. When she checks the pocket of her cardigan, she finds a bloody knife wrapped up in a t-shirt. She has no idea where they came from, and why she has them. She senses she is in danger, but she doesn’t know why.

When she happens to see the local news on television, she’s horrified to see reports of a crime scene where a message is scrawled across a window – “STAY AWAKE.”

Liv is the prime suspect in a double homicide committed two years ago. And now someone else has died in the same manner those two were killed. Detectives Halliday and Lavelle are assigned to the most recent case.

The author did a great job of portraying Liv’s feelings. I could feel her fear, confusion, and frustration as her entire life spins out of control. The pacing was perfect. The tension never lets up.

This story is told from Liv’s perspective and that of Detectives Halliday and Lavelle. (I really liked these detectives.) It is also told in a dual timeline, present-day and two years prior. While this can sometimes be confusing, I had no problem keeping it all straight.

It was so hard for me to put this riveting book down. I kept looking for moments when I could get back to reading.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the advance digital galley. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!
Megan Goldin certainly did not disappoint with her new book! Stay Awake had many twists and turns that kept me guessing throughout. The plot was fast paced and kept me interested- I needed to keep reading to figure out the ending. Would definitely recommend reading!

Stay Awake…that’s all Liv sees when she wakes up with no recollection of where she is and how she got there.

every moment she returns to places of her past, only she doesn’t understand why she can no longer recognize anyone around her and why nothing is the way she remembers.

As she moves around New York she learns that the very place she woke up this morning was the scene of a heinous crime, one for which she contained the murder weapon safely tucked in her cardigan.

How could she possibly have forgotten what happened and why does seem as though everyone she knows seems to know something she doesn’t..

memory blackouts. stalkers. murder. revenge

This is the what this novel entails. The whole novel I found myself constantly questioning who could be targeting Liv, was she crazy or was someone really after her? I enjoyed the perspective of the detectives working the case as well, we are given a look into all the information they are discovering and it really drives the anxiety behind what Liv feels throughout the novel.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Megan Goldin for the opportunity to read this thrilling, amazing novel!

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..

This book was amazing. This is definitely one of the best books I have read so far this year. Told in alternating chapters between past and present, and you are unsure if Liv is an unreliable narrator in either/both of the timelines. I loved the fresh aspect of a main character (and the narrator) being someone who has a memory disorder that erases their memories every time they fell asleep, thereby rendering anything they said or believed as questionable. There was non-stop action, and the book will keep you guessing as to the true identity of the killer until almost the very end. If you are a fan of thrillers then this needs to be at the top of your TBR pile. I guarantee you will love this.

While I was excited to start this and the way it reminds me of Groundhog day movie, I just feel the same things constantly being repeated was too much. Interesting psychological thriller and a very slow build.

Stay Awake is one of my favorite thrillers I’ve read in a long time. It was suspenseful and kept me guessing through the whole book.

Liv finds herself waking up on a train and has no idea what has happened for the last two years. She visits her home and work only to find out she moved to London two years ago and she has no recollection. Liv has notes written all up and down her hands warning her not to fall asleep and not to trust anyone. To make matters worse, she is a suspect in a murder that was comitted the night before.

Going back and forth from past to present, we learn about Liv’s life as she tries to unravel what’s happening to her now. Very suspenseful and kept me guessing. I actually stayed up late to finish the book because I just had to know how it ended. Excellent thriller!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for granting me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

As a big fan of both The Night Swim and The Escape Room, I had high hopes for Stay Awake. I don’t know what happened to the author with this book, but unfortunately it just wasn’t up to the same level as the other two books. While the idea for the plot was intriguing, the execution turned out to be rather bland and I never really bought into any sense of danger or urgency for the main character.

My copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it.

I am here to say that this book was one of the best psychological suspense rides I have gone on. We meet Liv, who wakes up not knowing where she is, or what happened. she keeps retracing her steps and hitting dead ends, and her memory is pretty foggy, she doesn't remember what happened!!! Then we get into this crime that just happened, I was sitting here trying to find the connection which was hard to do. One thing I loved is that once we got to the middle of the book, things started to unravel, Liv and her writings, what happened 2 years ago, her condition, and its origin, it was an awesome ride. The book was a slow burn and there was a lot of back and forth between the past and now, wish the outcome was a little better, but one thing I liked how the author kept us in this cloud of confusion, like Liv was throughout the whole book, I liked that. Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

This book started off so real it pulls you right in. Trying to find out what is going on became a little much it was as if she didn't want to know as kept running away. I understand why but made the story drag a little.
Was an OK read for me.. was expecting more with rave reviews on this one

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for an early release of this book

3.5 This is a good slump buster. A fast-moving, propulsive plot. When I couldn’t focus on reading anything, this book held my attention. That being said, I don’t think it’s my favorite writing. In a word, it’s a bit basic. Some of the language especially in the dialog reads very flat and nondescript. Very middle of the road in terms of mystery. I would likely give it a 3 if it hadn’t pulled me out of a slump.

Stay Awake
by Megan Goldin
5 stars
When Liv Reese wakes up her memory restarts from two years ago, so when liv wakes up in the back of a taxi she has no idea where she is or what she's doing. She tries to return to the home she remembers and when a stranger answers the door she starts to freak out then she notices writing all over her hands STAY AWAKE. Two years ago liv had a good life living with her best friend and roommate and good boyfriend. That's all Liv can remember now she's in New York wandering around lost and even more scared after she sees a news report about a murder that had STAY AWAKE written on the window in blood.

I went into this book blind and I absolutely loved it I couldn't put it down and just wanted to devour it. I thought this was going to be about multiple personalities. It blew my mind that it was about memory loss and how it all came about. This is my first Megan Goldin book and defiantly didn't disappoint at all. It does get a little repetitive with Liv forgetting and going through the panic over and over but she also limits it getting to a certain point she has a balance. I recommend this to anyone that likes thrillers and can handle a little repetitiveness.

Thank you, Net Galley and St. Martin's press for the eARC for an honest review.

3.25
I am very conflicted with the rating I want to give this coz there were some parts I liked and some parts I didn't.

It started off with a bang and I was really invested at first like imagine having to wake up every morning and you don't remember anything that happened in the past 2 years of your life....a very chilling thought. So I was really interested in seeing how everything was gonna happen. But then I kept getting so annoyed with Liv, coz with every opportunity she had to get to know what happened to her she either ran away or she did something so idiotic that messed everything up because if I was in the same situation as her I would do anything and everything to try and find out what was happening to me.
Some parts were so repetitive and I knew what Liv was gonna do even before she did it because she just kept making the same mistake over and over again.

Also the ending, the thing that actually happened; I saw it coming abt a 100 pages before it was actually revealed and I didn't think the story would go there but it did and that was also very underwhelming.

With that being said what I really enjoyed in the book was the perspectives we got from the detectives. I wish we had more books with them because it was fun and interesting to follow along the case with them.

Every time Liv Reese wakes up, she has no memories from the last 2 years. She has mysterious and disturbing notes scribbled all over her hands. And she thinks she may have committed a serious crime.

I enjoyed Stay Awake so much. It was the perfect book to get me out of a serious thriller slump. It kept me guessing up to the end, because like Liv, I didn’t know which of the characters to trust!

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy. Stay Awake publishes August 9, 2022.

I couldn’t put this one down. I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it in one sitting because I was so intrigued. I love that it jumped back & forth between the present & the past.