I requested this book from NetGalley as it looked like a very interesting and fun thriller and seemed to have early rave reviews. I thought it would be intriguing to follow a character with memory gaps to see what unfolds. Sadly this book did not work for me. There seems to be a lot of plot holes and the “twist” was pretty obvious from the very beginning… repetitive and predictable. The story just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

I would read another book from this author though in the future as to me it feels like the author has a lot of potential and I could see future books being better with more practice. Thank you NetGalley and St Martins Press for allowing me to access this book early and provide my honest review.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced and unique book. The story centers on Liv, who literally can't remember anything from the last 2 years every time she falls asleep. She has to leave herself clues on what to do and not to do in order to pull it together. That's not working so well, so when she becomes tied to a murder, she really can't be sure what she did or didn't do and has to try to put all the pieces together before she loses her memory again. You also get some chapters focused on the police work to solve the murder.

Liv was a likable character though sometimes I was frustrated with some of the decisions she made. Then again, who knows what I would do in a similar situation? It was fun to try to solve the mystery behind Liv's memory loss along with the current murder mystery. I thought the detective work was well done too- it wasn't super detailed but it felt like they considered logical conclusions throughout the process (though I did think it was weird that the police detective was always referrred to by her full name at the beginning of each of her chapters). There was a good dynamic between the detectives as well.

The end was a surprise and I thought the author did a good job in connecting it back to other things that happened to tie up loose ends. The book moved at a very fast cilp the entire way through.

Overall, this was a good read and stood out as a unique storyline. I'd recommend it to those who like psychological thrillers and mysteries. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was incredible. I could not stop thinking about it when I was not reading it. The twists and turns were so unexpected and well done. I highly recommend and look forward to reading more from Goldin!

Whoa Stay Awake kept me awake! Liv Reese can’t fall asleep because when she wakes up she doesn’t remember anything. Definitely a fast paced thriller! I really liked night swim and stay awake was even better!!

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin is a keep you on the edge of your seat kind of book and I couldn't put this one down! Live Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no phone, purse or even how she ended up there. She has "Stay Awake" written on her hands and arms. What the heck is going on? The twists were great! I definitely look forward to reading more books by Megan Goldin!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this e-book!

A great thriller that I enjoyed tremendously. Would recommend if you like thrillers or the authors previous work. This was my first by this author and I enjoyed it a lot.

Loved it, loved it, loved it!!!! What a great thriller! Thank you so much to the publisher I enjoyed it immensely! It had a similar vibe like the movie Memento but it was so much better! Can wait for authors new book!

Perfect thriller for a fun summer read! The plot will really keep you guessing because the main character loses her short term memory every time she falls asleep and has to reset each time she wakes. You are caught between desperately wanting her to stay awake and waiting to see how she fits the pieces of her puzzle together. Did she murder someone? Why can’t she remember what happened? You will race through to find all the answers.
Huge thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Stay Awake is easily one of my favorite books I've read this year! It's a gripping, can't-put-down, at-the-edge-of-my-seat thriller. The story follows a young woman, Liv, who is suffering from a rare case of amnesia, in which, every time she falls asleep and wakes up, she can't remember anything that has happened in the past two years. Unfortunately, during that time, she has suffered a trauma (that she can't remember) and now she is the prime suspect of a murder investigation (again, an event she can't remember). The book is very strategically written between Liv's past and present and between her present and the present of the detectives who are working her case. All of the characters are well developed and relatable, including the detectives. I honestly couldn't put this book down. I will be recommending this book to everyone I know; easily 5 stars!

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I appreciated the high concept of a woman losing her memory every time she falls asleep, but I found her behavior in that situation frustrating and implausible. Having said that, I really liked the detective characters and the story was propulsive so I flew threw it. I think he culprit was pretty obvious, but I did enjoy. it more than the author's previous book.

When Liv falls asleep she forgets everything! Her life as she knew it is gone, her job and her best friends, and she may be a murderer. This is told from two different perspectives Livs and a detectives perspectives. 10 years ago Liv was living with her best friend, dating a new guy and she had her dream job writing for a magazine.
Now, she is in the back of a taxi returning to her home only to realize that it's not her home anymore. She can't remember anything that happened and now she is trying to piece everything together to figure out what happened. When she catches a glimpse of the news and finds out the victim's blood has been used to leave a message, the very same message that she has on her hand! Omg, this is a great whodunit type of book and of course, there is one person that will do anything and everything they can to make sure that she never remembers what happened.
"the game is afoot"
If you love great thrillers with a splash of mystery then you will love this novel! While it was easy to find out whodunit I seriously loved it! I couldn't put it down!
Thank. you St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the extraordinary opportunity to read and review this one!

Wow, Megan Goldin knocks another one out of the park with her newest thriller!

I love psychological thrillers with amnesia themes but Stay Awake captured my attention from the start. Liv wakes up with no memory from the past two years and no belongings. She has a note on her hand not to fall asleep. As Liv tries to remember her past, she learns she is wanted for murder.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good fast paced psychological thriller. 5 stars easily!!! I loved every minute of this book.

The premise of this book sounded so promising: every time Liv, a woman with a strange kind of amnesia, wakes up she can't remember anything and believes it is two years in the past. The execution, however, was disappointing.

Amnesia in suspense novels is a familiar trope, but is always interesting when done well. Stay Awake is unoriginal and poorly plotted. Much of the novel is repetitive. Liv is constantly remembering things she's forgotten, but the reader does not need to remember with her. I lost count of the number of times she mentions the words written on her hands or various other tidbits the reader was already told about. The writing is poor. The author tells rather than shows, which made for a tedious read.

The only reason I gave Stay Awake 2 stars and read until the end, is because I was interested in the mystery at the center of the story. The resolution there was also disappointing and not worth the read.

Memory loss, insomnia, murder and some fascinating characters will keep you moving quickly through this suspenseful thriller! You will hit the ground running with the main character Liv Reese. The story begins with no memory of events for the past two years, but finds herself with a bloody knife in hand. She suffers from repetitive dissociative memory loss. If she falls asleep, everything that happened that day she forgets so she writes notes on her hand to help. One of the notes is "Stay Awake" so she overdoes the caffeine, No Doz and skips sleep until she falls asleep in the most random places without memory of how she got there.

Liv's roommate Amy and her boyfriend Marco are on one of the timelines two years ago. The story is well-developed in taking you to the occurrences that caused her to forget what happened. Present day timeline she sees the surveillance cameras of herself on the news wanted for a brutal murder of a man with the words scrawled in blood on his window "Stay Awake". Not knowing who to trust she seeks help at one of the places she wrote on her arm to trust The Nocturnal Bar. It is mainly told from her perspective, but the other is told from the detective working the case Darcy Halliday. A very respectful character that does not want to harm Liv, but wants to find her before someone else does.... that wants her dead after a failed attempt two years ago.

The book is high energy except for the helplessness of Liv's condition will leave you restless and begging for her to stop overdoing the caffeine and just go to sleep. I highly recommend reading this one because it is suspenseful and will keep you guessing until the end.

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this e-galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I wasnt able to read this one before it expired. I had planned on reading it a bit later since it was a August release, but when i went to open it, it had expired. Its a shame!

Megan Goldin, I love you and your writing!!!

This book is such a suspenseful and wonderful thriller. There are multiple points of view with different timelines. One point of view is the main character/murder suspect from the present and then from 2 years ago. The third point of view is from detective Halliday. I genuinely enjoyed all three points of view. It was nice to be able to learn about Liv's life before the trauma and her present life with her rare form of amnesia and being a suspect in a murder case. Detective Halliday's point of view was also wonderful and I enjoyed that she didn't jump to conclusions with Liv's case. All of the characters were enjoyable and likeable. Honestly, I really didn't suspect the murder suspect to turn out to be who it was, I didn't have the slightest idea. The ending was fantastic, it was the right amount of suspense and action. I'm satisfied with the ending and that Liv got the justice she deserved. Nothing about the ending felt wrong or forgotten about.

Overall, I would highly recommend this novel and this author! Thank you NetGalley, Megan Goldin, and St. Martin's Press for the complimentary copy of this ARC.

Liv wakes up and has no recollection of the past two years. The only clues she has are a bloody knife wrapped in a shirt and a large wad of cash, along with cryptic messages written on her hands in her own handwriting telling her to “stay awake.” It turns out she forgets everything about the last two years every time she falls asleep. Meanwhile, detectives have found a dead body and the prime suspect in the murder looks a lot like Liz…

The premise of this book was top notch. It kept me on my toes wondering why Liv’s memory kept disappearing and what it was that she was forgetting. I love a book that jumps back and forth in time to put together the whole story, and this book took great advantage of that technique. It was a little confusing at the beginning when we had to not only keep track of what character we were following and whether we were in the past or the present, but also what time of day it was in the present. As the book went on, the time of day mattered less and less and thus got less confusing. Although I loved the plot, there was a lot of telling and not showing when it came to character development. We were told about each characters ~traumatic~ pasts in what basically amounted to mini paragraph long biographies, and it felt clumsily done. Speaking of other clumsy things, much of the dialogue between characters felt stiff and impersonal, and was often used as a means to reveal a lot of information, which is always a little awkward to read. I liked that we were kept waiting until the very end for the climax, but I didn’t like that I didn’t feel as though there was enough closure concerning the “why” of a lot of the plot points earlier in the book. I liked the story overall, but wish that more thought would have been put into wrapping up loose ends and giving the reader and ending that felt right, rather than one that just went for shock.

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for this eARC for review!

Whoa what a rollercoaster! This book was very promising from the start. I really liked it even though around 70% through I could basically tell what was going to happen. Not bad although slightly predictable! Good storyline.

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin is about a young woman named Liv. Liv wakes up in a car, not sure how she got there. She gets dropped off at her apartment. When she gets there she realizes she doesn’t have her phone or her keys. She buzzes her roommate to let her in. However, her roommate doesn’t live there anymore, and neither does Liv. She isn’t sure what to do or where to go. Nothing is as it seems anymore. Why does she have things written all over her hands and arms? Things like “stay awake”! This begins a chaotic and disorienting night for Liv.
The chapters alternate between Liv trying to figure out what is going on and a female detective named Halliday who is investigating a murder. A man was found stabbed death in an apartment and someone has written “wake up” in his blood on the window. All signs point to Liv as the suspect.
This book was very well written. The way Liv’s chapters are written make you feel so confused and disoriented, much like Liv did. I really enjoyed trying to piece together what happened and when it happened. When you think you have it all figured out…You don’t! This is another great book by Megan Goldin. I look forward to many more from this author. Thank you To Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Take 50 First Dates, swap out rom-com for mystery/thriller, remove Drew Barrymore’s family and friends (and Adam Sandler of course) from the equation, leaving her all on her own to figure out what the heck is going on, and you get Stay Awake.

Up until the very end, I fully intended on giving this book a 5-star solely because I could NOT put this book down. However, the ending left much to be desired. More on that at the end of my review.

Every time our main character, Liv, falls asleep, she forgets everything that’s happened in the last two years. Each time she wakes up (even from a nap), she is disoriented and confused as to where she is and how she got there, since the last memory she has is answering a phone call in her office two years prior. She has no family to reach out to and every time she tries to call her boyfriend or best friend, she gets no answer, leaving her with no one to turn to for help. All she has to go off of are the scribbles on her hands and arms with phrases like “trust no one”, “stay awake”, and “wake up”. When a similar phrase is linked to a present day murder scene, Liv begins to wonder if she’s somehow involved, especially as additional details emerge, all somehow linking back to her. Did she murder someone? Is someone framing her for murder? Liv finds herself running from a crime she doesn’t know if she committed.

The story is told from two points of view, Liv and the detective investigating the crime scene, and Liv’s perspective fluctuates between the present and two years prior, working its way up to the last memory she can recall before the two-year gap. I had a really hard time putting this book down because I wanted to keep reading to uncover what happened to Liv two years prior as well as find out how she may or may not be linked to the murder in present day.

So, why the rating? Because the ending left SO MANY plot holes and unexplained pieces of the story. I won’t give examples because I don’t want to spoil anything, but you know when you’re reading a mystery and stuff doesn’t make sense but you know by the end of the story you’ll understand? Yea, that didn’t happen here. Like, at all. And not in the fun Colleen Hoover “Verity” sort of way where you’re left to make up your own mind about what really happened. While we get the “whodunnit” answer at the end, there are so many other loose ends left hanging, leaving me to think it’s either poor writing or there are several completely irrelevant pieces in the story that should be removed altogether.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.