Brooke's Pick: Stay Awake by Megan Goldin

Liv Reese, waking up holding a bloodstained knife and her hands covered in scribbled messages, remembers nothing from the past two years and goes on the run for a crime she doesn't remember committing, followed by someone who will do anything to stop her from remembering - permanently.

Stay. AWAKE! I don’t think anyone will have trouble staying awake to read Megan Goldin’s aptly-titled new thriller Stay Awake. This tense and gripping novel places an unwitting amnesiac in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Imagine how difficult it would be to navigate the world if you forgot the past two years of your life every time you fell asleep. Now imagine that world with an added layer of threat and danger by way of someone on the hunt for … YOU.

Liv Reese awakes in a taxi with no idea how she got there. When she returns to her apartment, she discovers that apparently she doesn’t live there anymore, nor does she work in the office that she thinks she does. The only clues she has as to what might be going on are hand-written messages to herself inscribed on her hands. Warnings like, “Stay AWAKE” and “DON’T sleep!” What could all of this mean?

As Liv tries to put together the scattered pieces of her life, she learns that a murder has taken place and written in the window at the scene of the crime are the words, “Wake UP!” When Liv sees footage of one of the suspects on the news, she is shocked to discover that it is her; yet she doesn’t look like how she remembers herself. Just what is going on in Liv’s life and why can’t she remember?

Megan Goldin’s Stay Awake is so, so good! This book is utterly disorienting, yet also completely absorbing right from the start. The tone of Stay Awake is so ominous and creepy, and it utilizes layers and layers of mystery to keep the reader in suspense. There is a lot of back in forth in time, with the plot slowly revealing secrets about Liv’s past and present, and this can be a bit confusing, but once you become more familiar with the format, it is easier to follow along. The novel’s reveal and twist wasn’t especially shocking, but I didn’t care because the journey to that point was such a fun, wild ride. - Brooke, Public Relations Librarian