Stay Awake - Megan Goldin - ★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Megan Goldin

GENRE: Mystery Thriller.

PUBLICATION DATE: August 9, 2022

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A psychological mystery-thriller about a young woman with limited memory and knows just one thing: she has to stay awake. Think ‘Fifty First Dates’ combined with ‘Memento’ (or ‘Ghajini’ for my Indian friends.) Clever premise, good use of the unreliable narrator trope (Such a rarity!), interesting characters, capable police detectives (Another rarity!), steady pacing. A bit of a convenient ending and too many plotholes on post-read reflection, but on the whole, an entertaining option. As always for this genre, pick up this book after taking off your logical cap.

Plot Preview:

When Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi cab, she has no recollection of how she got there. She stumbles her way to her building, only to find a stranger answering the door, claiming that it is their house. When Liv fumbles through her pockets to search her phone, she finds a bloodstained knife instead. And on her hands, she notices scribbled messages written with a pen: STAY AWAKE.

The last thing Liv remembers from before this night is being a successful writer with a trendy magazine in NYC, sharing an apartment with her best friend, and dating a man who adores her. How did she go from there to being this lost, dishevelled self? Why is the weather different? Where is her phone? Why can't she remember anything? As Liv tries to sort through her confusion, she learns one more thing through the local news: there has been a murder, and on the victim’s window, there is a message similar to the one on Liv’s arms. Liv is desperate to find out what’s happening, but the only thing she knows for sure is that the message is right: she needs to STAY AWAKE.

The story comes to us over two timelines in Liv’s first-person POV, and also in a third-person narrative from the detectives investigating the murder.

PSA: Don’t read the GR blurb.

Bookish Yays:

☕ Darcy Halliday. Police detective and military veteran. One heck of a capable officer. It is nice to see the writing focus more on the skills of the woman police officer than on her physical attributes.

☕ Darcy’s police partner Jack Lavelle is also a good character. But what I like best is that their partnership on the case doesn’t automatically lead to romance, not even to flirting or attraction. It was great to see the connection stay professional throughout.

☕ The two timelines split between current time and two years ago. Neatly marked with clear timestamps, and helpful in offering a step-by-step reveal of Liv’s problems and also of the police investigation.

☕ Great to see the policework get one half of the narrative. I am anyway more fond of police procedurals than psych thrillers, so this worked to my advantage. It also helped that the investigation was well-written and the detectives were capable rather than the bumbling oafs usually found in psych thrillers.

☕ Nice use of the unreliable narrator trope, thanks to Liv’s medical condition. There’s not much deliberate manipulation in her reveals as she simply has no memory of what happened.

☕ Quite a few good twists and turns. Nicely suspenseful, overall. Though it gets a bit confusing at times, it is gripping enough.

☕ As steady a pace as possible with a memory-impaired protagonist. The plot begins right at the deep end without any initial build-up, so we feel as discombobulated as Liv at the start.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

💤 Liv’s first-person perspective brings out her disorientation well, but she certainly doesn’t make it easy for us to sympathise with her. She NEVER uses her common sense, she goes overboard on caffeine in the bid to STAY AWAKE, and she always seem to run away from meetings/interactions at the most inopportune moment, just when she could get some answers. A part of her behaviour can be excused by her medical condition, but the repetitively rash decisions based purely on impulse than logic get annoying after a bit.

💤 I am fairly certain that Liv’s specific type of amnesia doesn’t exist. It began conveniently and it ended equally conveniently. But this isn't a medical nonfiction, so a 50-50 opinion.

Bookish Nays:

😴 Many plotholes, all of which pop up when you ponder over the book. I don’t want to go into major spoilers, so here’s one logical gap from the first chapter: If Liv uses her arms to write messages she needs herself to remember, why does she only write vague instructions such as “Stay awake” or “Trust no one”? Why not something more concrete such as the identities of those around her who help her or her home address or an instruction to refer to her journal in case she’s confused? Half her problems would have been solved with more sensible body graffiti. (As seen in Memento and Ghajini.)

😴 How is it that of the number of people interact with Liv during her impaired status, not a single one realises that she is ailing? Also, how come there are n number of people interacting with Liv AND knowing her memory issues AND YET not helping her? Instead, they dole out generic advice and help her pump herself with more caffeine.

😴 I totally called the villain right as soon as the key event occurred. Mystery/thriller authors should realise that when they place too much suspicion on any character, (most) readers know that the guilty party is NOT that character. A better approach would be to throw doubt on every possible grey character so that we are constantly changing our minds about the ‘who’ – much more fun.

😴 The motive to the villain’s behaviour doesn’t make complete sense.

😴 The performance art thingy. What the heck was that?! How was that arc just left dangling?!

😴 The ending is way too convenient and quite a few things are exaggerated. Hallmarks of this genre,I know, but I still like to complain about such things.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at almost 11 hours, is read by two experienced narrators: January LaVoy and Imogen Church. It was a great decision to have two narrators. Even though the two characters are written in different grammatical voices, it helps to have distinct voices for each. However, only one narrator delivered well. I took some time to get used to Church’s style of voicing Liv. Somehow, her overall performance felt too melodramatic and whiny. LaVoy, the narrator for Darcy, was expectedly spot on, making her sound truly capable and commanding. Given the back-and-forth timelines and multiple characters, the audio version would be recommendable only to experienced listeners.

All in all, this is a nice-enough entertainer, but if you start mulling over certain plot points, the logical loopholes start coming up in abundance. As such, do what you should always do with this genre: stop thinking too much, stop expecting common sense, grab that popcorn, and go with the mindless flow. It will click much better that way. (I should start following my own advice!)

This is my first book by this author, and given my experience with this book, I wouldn’t mind checking out her other books, which is more than I can say for most psych thriller writers these days.

Recommended to those psych thriller fans who are wise enough not to overanalyse while reading this genre.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press for providing the DRC of “Stay Awake” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.