I’m blown away by this book. From page one till the very end it kept me on the edge of my seat wanting more. Liv Reese, seemingly had a great life, with best friend Amy and boyfriend Marco and a job she loved. Until the night a cab ride takes her back to the apartment she shares with Amy and it’s not her apartment anymore and she has a bloody knife in her pocket. No sign of Amy and both her and Marco are unreachable by phone or through family and friends. All over her hands are scribbles, “Stay Awake”, “Trust Noone” as Liv struggles to remember what has happened to her as a murder is blasted on the news and she’s the prime suspect. On the run from the police and searching for answers Liv knows she didn’t murder anyone but it sure does look like she did and whatever happens she can’t fall asleep! This author knows how to tell a story! Great characters and I loved the dynamic between investigators Halliday and Lavelle. Liv’s discovery of new memories and wanting to find out more kept me engrossed. 5 stars, I definitely recommend this book. I’m already looking for more from this author!

This one gripped me from the beginning. I found Stay Awake to be an inventive thriller and a great book to get lost in during my plane travels this week. I think this would be a fun book to listen to if I were to read it again.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ever have a book that you just can’t put down, is engrossing, but in the end just leaves you feeling meh?

I was so excited to read this one as I loved her last book, The Night Swim, but it ultimately fell a little flat for me.
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Liv Reese forgets everything when she falls asleep and reverts back to her life two years ago every time she wakes up. When she wakes up next to a murdered man with writing all over her hands and matching messages in blood, she has a feeling something horrible has happened…

Why you’ll love it:
🔁Dual timelines (unfolding over one day with snippets from the events two years ago)
🥸Female detective trusts an unreliable narrator and her perspective alternates with Liv’s
🔪 Fast paced thriller that keeps you wondering WTF is going on (but not scary/edge of your seat)
🤯Unpredictable ending

In the end, I found a lot of this to be overly repetitive and drawn out. I wished the characters would have been more developed but I was definitely entertained! I

I didn't enjoy Stay Awake as much as I thought it would, but it still has its moments. I'm the type of person who takes notes and likes to pay close attention to the plot, and I found this book overwhelming, repetitive and confusing at a lot of points. And while I particularly enjoy a relentless pace, Stay Awake's twists and elements didn't feel very purposeful or carry that much weight to me. There wasn't much that I could really take away from it. But I do appreciate the fun concept and one that you can definitely feel sympathy for the protagonist.

My true rating for this book is 4.5/5. I feel like this is a thriller with a story that I've not really read before which was a breath of fresh air. The chapters are short so it's easy to fly through, yet at the same time I didn't find myself dying to pick it up each day to continue reading which is why I'm giving it a 4.5 instead of 5. Once I got about halfway through and things start clicking into place, I wanted to keep going. I was 63% through it and then finished the book once I picked it up because I knew we were getting the answers as to what happened. I would absolutely recommend this to any mystery/thriller lover when it comes out in August!

I was reading this book as I quarantined from COVID, and I finished it in two days. I definitely intend to read more books by this author., I was caught up in this story about a woman, Liv, who lost her short-term memories every time she fell asleep. This rare type of amnesia was thought to have been caused by a trauma she witnessed two years ago while working at a magazine called Cultura in New York City and dating a man named Marco.

The book is told in alternating chapters from the present time to two years ago, and there are also chapters that go back two days and a day. The current time takes place in twenty-four hours and begins with Liv awakening in a cab which she doesn't remember boarding and being dropped off at a Brooklyn apartment that she shares with her friend, Amy. When she tries to enter, she realizes her purse is missing and, when she knocks, other occupants of the apartment answer and tell her that this is their place. Also missing her cell phone, Liv borrows a phone to call Amy and then Marco. Neither one answers her.

Not knowing what to do, she leaves the apartment and then realizes that she's carrying a bloody knife wrapped in a t-shirt. Dumping it in a trash bin, she notices some writing on her hand with the name of a local bar and the words, "Stay Awake." At the bar, she is greeted by the bartender who seems to know her, even though she doesn't recognize him. A news channel is showing a breaking report about a murder of an unidentified man who was stabbed in an apartment rental. A clue left at the scene were the words "Wake Up" written in the victim's blood on the window.

As the book flashes back and forth in time, readers learn that Liv is suspected of the murder that she can't remember. Her previous trauma is also described as well as the people from her past, one of whom might be framing her for the murder.

I highly recommend this excellent thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I was stumped as to the identity of the killer until a few pages before it was revealed.

This was SUCH a gripping psychological thriller - could not put it down. The first book I read from this author, and won't be the last. The main character Liv wakes up in a cab in the middle of the night with no recount of the last two years and major life events. She wakes with sharpie notes all over her and in possession of a bloody knife. It's a wild turn of events to follow Liv through her former life, piecing together life events, people, and places missing from memory for two years. I felt just as exhausted and desperate for the truth as the main character - so much so that I read this in record time.

What a page-turner!!!! This book had me on the edge of my seat from page 1. Liv Reese has no memory and finds herself on the run. This is edge-of-your-seat fun! If you love a good thriller, this book is for you.

Stay Awake was compulsively readable—the plot was interesting and kept me turning pages. The detectives, Halliday and Lavelle, were likable and easy to root for, as was the protagonist, and I found her rare amnesia to be convincingly conveyed by the author—a nifty feat of writing that could easily have turned convoluted, but didn’t.

My quibbles are that the end was a bit anticlimactic, and I felt there were some loose threads left hanging. For example, was the murderer also Liv’s stalker? If so, what purpose did replacing the milk, etc. serve? Still, overall, I enjoyed this one. My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Oh Megan Goldin is excellent. I adored The Night Swim and had so much fun with The Escape Room, she’s just too god, she can’t miss!

I enjoyed this book more than her previous book Night Swim. Really good concept and kept me interested until the end . Highly recommend

Stay Awake definitely kept me awake late into the night because I couldn’t put it down! I’m a fan of Megan Goldin so I thought I would enjoy it and I definitely did. It’s a clever idea and I loved following along with Liv as she tried to figure out what was going on and who she could trust.

The reader is given information in the most satisfying way - piece by piece, enough to gradually paint a picture but also withholding enough to keep us guessing and surprised. I would love to say I figured it all out but, to be honest, I was reading it way too quickly to even stop and guess for a moment.

Stay awake is available in August and is definitely one to add to your TBR.

Well, this is the best book I have read in a long time. Being a person who gravitates towards thrillers they can start to all seem to repeat one another.

While, this book may seem similar to others it has it’s own unique twists.

You are slammed right away with a huge mystery. Who is Liv and why is she holding knife and why does she have no memory of how she got it… and why it’s covered in blood. Just that alone made me want to read this book.

You learn that Liv has no memories at all. Whenever, she falls asleep her memory is erased. Now, there is a man found murder in his bed with a special message written on the window.. Stay Awake the same message Liv finds on wrist written in ink…

The book is fasted paced but, in the best way. Each chapter you learn more about Liv and what happened to her memories.

This book should definitely be added to your “to be read list.” It will be begging you.. STAY AWAKE…. Just one more chapter!

Thank you Netgallery for this ARC. It was a great read!

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book before publication.

I read Escape Room and Night Swim by Megan Goldin so I was excited to get a chance to read this one early.

I dove into this one and didn't let up until it was done. It was a quick and enjoyable read, but I will say the twist....was predictable. I still enjoyed reading it so I would rate somewhere between a 3.5 and 4. Not as good as Night Swim was.

I am rating this book a 4, but think it's probably within the 3.5 range. I'm rounding up, rather than down, because it did keep me on my toes. Where I struggled is its repetitiveness and less sophisticated writing than I've found in Megan Goldin's other books. I was a bit surprised by it, to be honest. The writing style just felt different, not bad, but not quite as good either. To be clear, I am generally a fan of Megan Goldin and like three of the other books I have read by this author. The nature of the book is repetitive, because its plot is about a women who is essentially having to relive experiences each time she falls asleep. With that, there was redundancy and I wish that some of the repeated things and descriptions of what she remembers when she wakes up could have been changed even slightly (not to change the memory, of course, but to describe it in a way that doesn't drag for the reader). That may be a hard task, given the context of the story, but otherwise I was drawn into the story and believe it was suspenseful. Thank you so much to Netgalley, Megan Goldin, and the publisher for the early copy for an honest review!

*leans back to scream at the ceiling* I am genuinely puzzled by all the rave reviews - did I read the same book as everyone else?! Because if this wasn't a buddy read with one of my friends (shout out to Kristy!), it would've been a DNF at the 20% mark.

Stay Awake's title should serve as a warning for die-hard thriller lovers or anybody that appreciates good writing - you better pound some coffee and Adderall, otherwise this shit will put you to sleep. Goldin's writing style is lazy and amateurish and, for me, the downfall of this novel. It read like a first draft. It's flat, ironically unmemorable, and formulaic at best. It got in its own way and made for a frustrating experience.

The multiple timelines and POVs were poorly executed and agonizing to read. The intercutting chapters involving the detectives trying to solve the case feels like those CliffNotes-like summaries at the end of textbook chapters - they are literally breaking down everything that's happened so far in case you fell asleep while reading or struggle with deductive reasoning. In fact, all the dialogue, inner monologues, observations (I guess I could've short-formed this by just saying "writing") is like this. If you hate drawing your own conclusions and using your brain while reading, don't worry. You'll be spoon-fed everything paragraph by paragraph.

Given the context of the story - a woman struggling with amnesia finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation - repetition as a plot device makes sense. *makes face* Y'all know what I'm about to say though, right? If the writing style were more original and the author found new ways to describe what the reader has observed countless times but the heroine has seemingly discovered for the first time without making it seem tired, I wouldn't be complaining. But repetition was so plainly stated and prevalent that it bled into the other characters' dialogue - do they also have short-term memory problems?! Why the hell is everyone repeating themselves ad nauseam through the cringiest dialogue?!

Giving two stars to this book feels generous but I enjoyed the concept, even though it was far too ambitious for Goldin's capabilities. If you want a light thriller, beach read, or something to kill time if you're a casual reader, maybe you'll be into this. For everyone else, skip this and just watch the 2000 film Memento. It's definitely more worth your time.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Pub date: August 9, 2022

When I first started reading this, I was so confused. Much like Liv was, which I believe was the point. I enjoyed learning new information along the way and I was rooting for Liv throughout the novel. I couldn’t imagine not remembering another that had happened to me once I fell asleep and the disorientation that would go along with it. Golden unravels a story that is intriguing and addicting, keeping you on your toes throughout the story.

I had some suspicion, and some things still don’t add up in my head. Plus, being a story where the main character struggles to remember can be a tad repetitive, but I think the multi-timeline and multi-POV helped break up the slight repetitive details and made it so I didn’t feel like I was reading the same thing over and over again. I would definitely recommend this book, and just know it’s okay to feel VERY confused at the beginning, especially if you don’t read the synopsis :)

First of all, props to Megan Goldin for pulling off a tricky plot and multiple perspectives/timelines. The first few chapters sucked me in, but as the book went on, my attention started wandering. Multiple viewpoints can be hit or miss for me, and this was a miss. Overall, the book wasn't a fit for me, but I admire the skill it took to write it and remain a fan of Goldin's. I'm hoping I connect more with her next story.

I really enjoyed the plot of this book! It hooked me from the description and I’m so glad it did. This was my first novel by Megan Goldin and I’m an instant fan. I enjoyed the characters and the little bread crumbs left throughout the story line. A faulty memory in a character can be frustrating as a reader but it tied up nicely in the end. Can’t wait to read more from this author!

Ohh I found this pretty addicting because of the writing style & plot idea! I read it super quick bc I was turning pages quickly and eager to read it each night. I wasn't sure what direction it was going to go which is always a plus and kept me guessing. This was my first read by Goldin but won't be my last.