Thank you St. Martin’s Press, #partner for the advanced copy of Stay Awake in exchange for my honest review. I purchased the audiobook for my own collection.
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio
Published: August 9, 2022
Summary:
A murder she doesn’t remember committing. A killer she doesn’t remember meeting. Megan Goldin’s Stay Awake is an electrifying novel that proves memory can be deadly.
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.
A complex thriller that unfolds at a breakneck speed, Stay Awake will keep you up all night.
My thoughts:
I have become a huge fan of Megan Goldin’s thrillers, having loved both her last two books, The Escape Room and The Night Swim, so of course I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her latest book, Stay Awake. And I’m so happy to say it totally delivers in every way I had hoped!
One of my favorite tropes in thrillers is the amnesia story and I loved the way it is used here. It totally grabbed my attention and made for such an addictive, compelling story. Yes, there is a bit of repetition here and there, but you sort of have to expect that when you are dealing with someone forgetting things. I loved the way the story was told from Liv’s perspective both in the past and present and that we also get some chapters from the detective. I really liked her character, too – Detective Darcy Halliday.
This book kept me on my toes right from the beginning and I loved that things moved fast. I never felt like there was a lot of downtime in this book, but you do need to pay attention. I was so focused on what was happening with Liv’s mental state that I missed a few clues as to the identity of the murderer. This is definitely a book I plan to reread sometime in the future and read much slower! The first time around, I just couldn’t slow down…I needed to see how it ended!
With this book, Megan Goldin proves that she is a master at what she does and that you are not going to get a standard cookie-cutter thriller from her, which I love. She is a must-read for me and I am already counting down the days until her next book comes out!
Audio thoughts:
This book was so good on audio and was narrated by two amazing narrators, Imogen Church and January LaVoy. They both did a fantastic job bringing this story to life. Their pacing and intonation was spot on. I ended up listening to this one in a day because I just couldn’t put it down!
