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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Stay Awake by Megan Goldin
Disappointed in this one…really enjoyed the previous books that I read by this author but this one let me down. Why? Well, I never bought into it or found it believable. I didn’t warm to the main character, didn’t feel I got to know the detectives on the case, and never really understood the motivation for murder, stalking, attempted murder, and simple solution at the end. What should have been a fast paced, thrilling, suspenseful tale – flipping from present to two years ago while also following th detectives, just didn’t provide the intensity and pull me in as I had hoped. In the end I was underwhelmed. That said, I am hopeful the next by this author will be more to my liking as I gave five-star reviews to both Night Swim and The Escape Room.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.
2-3 Stars
Disappointed in this one…really enjoyed the previous books that I read by this author but this one let me down. Why? Well, I never bought into it or found it believable. I didn’t warm to the main character, didn’t feel I got to know the detectives on the case, and never really understood the motivation for murder, stalking, attempted murder, and simple solution at the end. What should have been a fast paced, thrilling, suspenseful tale – flipping from present to two years ago while also following th detectives, just didn’t provide the intensity and pull me in as I had hoped. In the end I was underwhelmed. That said, I am hopeful the next by this author will be more to my liking as I gave five-star reviews to both Night Swim and The Escape Room.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.
2-3 Stars
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Ridiculous premise but unexpectedly enjoyable read.
2.5 stars but not rounding up to 3
Liv can not remember anything about the past two years — including that her best friend and roommate, Amy, and her boyfriend, Marco were murdered. Or that she was almost killed. Or that she moved to England and met and got engaged to Ted Cole. Memento style, she has words written all over her hands and arms to remind her of things because every time she goes to sleep, she forgets the entire last two years.
She wakes up in a taxi — The book started out fun to read. Bu then liv kept repeating the same thing (deep distrust of cops — no really good explanation for it, but she says it often). Then on a bench in the train station. She keeps waking up and not being as shocked as someone who has absolutely no idea what’s going on would react in my opinion. People keep telling her things, like that she lives in a basement apartment and there are keys to the apartment with her name on it, and items in the apartment that are hers, but she refuses to believe she would live there because it’s so dingy. She also leaves helpful post it notes like “he’s coming for me “and “don’t trust anyone “. Why wouldn’t she write names? That’s be much more helpful.
Spoiler: Amy’s big-time surgeon boyfriend, Brett, killed Amy and Marco. I’m not even sure why, but I guess it’s because he found out that Amy and Marco were sleeping together?
The book skips back-and-forth between two years ago and present, and 24 hours ago. The present chapters have timestamps on them, and they’re all out of order so if Something Happens at 5:53 PM and then you’re reading about some thing that happened at 3:04 PM — it’s very confusing. Throw in 24 hours earlier or two years earlier and you practically have to draw a timeline.
The cops have these little nuggets of wisdom
“An ugly gash under his rib cage suggested the murder weapon was sharp object of some sort, probably a knife”
There’s an entire page of unnecessary information about Halliday’s military friend and all the stuff he went through and why she runs a marathon in his name. His name is never mentioned again once in the book.
“ Do we know what kind of knife was used? The perp took the murder weapon”, Lavelle said. “ well there you go “Roscoe added. “ A perp so attached to his blade he can’t bear to leave it behind. It adds fuel to the theory that the perp was a killer for hire “. WHAT?! Sure, most murder weapons are left for the cops to find easily….right.
Liv can not remember anything about the past two years — including that her best friend and roommate, Amy, and her boyfriend, Marco were murdered. Or that she was almost killed. Or that she moved to England and met and got engaged to Ted Cole. Memento style, she has words written all over her hands and arms to remind her of things because every time she goes to sleep, she forgets the entire last two years.
She wakes up in a taxi — The book started out fun to read. Bu then liv kept repeating the same thing (deep distrust of cops — no really good explanation for it, but she says it often). Then on a bench in the train station. She keeps waking up and not being as shocked as someone who has absolutely no idea what’s going on would react in my opinion. People keep telling her things, like that she lives in a basement apartment and there are keys to the apartment with her name on it, and items in the apartment that are hers, but she refuses to believe she would live there because it’s so dingy. She also leaves helpful post it notes like “he’s coming for me “and “don’t trust anyone “. Why wouldn’t she write names? That’s be much more helpful.
Spoiler: Amy’s big-time surgeon boyfriend, Brett, killed Amy and Marco. I’m not even sure why, but I guess it’s because he found out that Amy and Marco were sleeping together?
The book skips back-and-forth between two years ago and present, and 24 hours ago. The present chapters have timestamps on them, and they’re all out of order so if Something Happens at 5:53 PM and then you’re reading about some thing that happened at 3:04 PM — it’s very confusing. Throw in 24 hours earlier or two years earlier and you practically have to draw a timeline.
The cops have these little nuggets of wisdom
“An ugly gash under his rib cage suggested the murder weapon was sharp object of some sort, probably a knife”
There’s an entire page of unnecessary information about Halliday’s military friend and all the stuff he went through and why she runs a marathon in his name. His name is never mentioned again once in the book.
“ Do we know what kind of knife was used? The perp took the murder weapon”, Lavelle said. “ well there you go “Roscoe added. “ A perp so attached to his blade he can’t bear to leave it behind. It adds fuel to the theory that the perp was a killer for hire “. WHAT?! Sure, most murder weapons are left for the cops to find easily….right.
I did not like the narrator and the store was not making sense by chapter 15
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn't affected the content of my review.
I'm as surprised as anyone that I didn't really like this. It wasn't a bad read, and there were parts I really liked, but a large part of this book just felt extremely frustrating to me, rather than the intriguing and unsettling the author was going for (I think).
Stay Awake kicks off with our MC, Liv, waking up in a taxi with no memory of how she got there, and upon directing the cab to her apartment, finds that two strangers are living there. She also finds a bloody knife in her pocket, and cryptic phrases are written all over her hands and arms, saying things like STAY AWAKE, DON'T GO TO SLEEP, YOU FORGET WHEN YOU SLEEP. It soon becomes apparent to the reader that she is suffering from memory problems, as every time she sleeps her memory resets to an afternoon in July when she accepted a phone call at work two and a half years before. As she's wandering around NYC, trying to figure out her life, she notices on the news (multiple times across the book) that a man has been murdered at a short-term rental, and someone has painted on the walls in his blood, "STAY AWAKE." Huh, wonder what could have happened there.
The other POV character is Detective Darcy Halliday, as she and her partner work to solve the murder of the man in the short-term rental, which eventually spirals into them investigating Liv, and trying to both find her physically and find out how she is connected to the case. The narrative is split between them about 70/30, with Liv (unfortunately) getting the lion's share of the POV. Liv's POV itself is split into the present day narrative, where she is wandering around NYC without a memory, and the past two and a half years leading up to the present day, where we find out what's been happening to her.
I was just endlessly frustrated with Liv. I know that not sleeping is really, really bad for you, and can compromise a lot of things, not least of which is your thinking and processing capabilities, but Liv throughout this book continues to make all the wrong decisions, do the same things over and over again (some of this can't be helped, of course, because she doesn't remember), and be the slowest person in the room to connect the dots. Every time her memory resets it takes her FOREVER to realize that the problem is with her and not with the world around her. Maybe I'm an asshole, but I hated having to listen to her doing this for most of the book. I felt it was agonizing, and not in a good way. Half of the book I feel like I spent yelling OH COME ON at my phone.
The ending was pretty good, though, even if I did almost completely figure out what was going on about halfway through the book. I think in the end that this just wasn't the book for me. I didn't find it nearly as emotionally compelling as her last book, The Night Swim, and now I'm worried about the copy of The Escape Room that I have waiting for me.
As for the audio itself, the dual narrators were pretty good. You have to listen on at at least 1.2x speed though, because Imogen Church (I think she's the one that does Liv's chapters) speaks like the audiobook narrator equivalent of the sloths in Zootopia.
January LaVoy was pretty good. She does the chapters narrated by Detective Halliday. If you're an audiobook reader, you'll be fine here, but I think it might have played better for me in hard copy so I could read through it faster and the frustrating parts didn't dragon on forever.
[2.5 stars, rounded up because the last third was pretty good for me]
Chipping Away at Mt. TBR, July 2022—Book 7/31
I'm as surprised as anyone that I didn't really like this. It wasn't a bad read, and there were parts I really liked, but a large part of this book just felt extremely frustrating to me, rather than the intriguing and unsettling the author was going for (I think).
Stay Awake kicks off with our MC, Liv, waking up in a taxi with no memory of how she got there, and upon directing the cab to her apartment, finds that two strangers are living there. She also finds a bloody knife in her pocket, and cryptic phrases are written all over her hands and arms, saying things like STAY AWAKE, DON'T GO TO SLEEP, YOU FORGET WHEN YOU SLEEP. It soon becomes apparent to the reader that she is suffering from memory problems, as every time she sleeps her memory resets to an afternoon in July when she accepted a phone call at work two and a half years before. As she's wandering around NYC, trying to figure out her life, she notices on the news (multiple times across the book) that a man has been murdered at a short-term rental, and someone has painted on the walls in his blood, "STAY AWAKE." Huh, wonder what could have happened there.
The other POV character is Detective Darcy Halliday, as she and her partner work to solve the murder of the man in the short-term rental, which eventually spirals into them investigating Liv, and trying to both find her physically and find out how she is connected to the case. The narrative is split between them about 70/30, with Liv (unfortunately) getting the lion's share of the POV. Liv's POV itself is split into the present day narrative, where she is wandering around NYC without a memory, and the past two and a half years leading up to the present day, where we find out what's been happening to her.
I was just endlessly frustrated with Liv. I know that not sleeping is really, really bad for you, and can compromise a lot of things, not least of which is your thinking and processing capabilities, but Liv throughout this book continues to make all the wrong decisions, do the same things over and over again (some of this can't be helped, of course, because she doesn't remember), and be the slowest person in the room to connect the dots. Every time her memory resets it takes her FOREVER to realize that the problem is with her and not with the world around her. Maybe I'm an asshole, but I hated having to listen to her doing this for most of the book. I felt it was agonizing, and not in a good way. Half of the book I feel like I spent yelling OH COME ON at my phone.
The ending was pretty good, though, even if I did almost completely figure out what was going on about halfway through the book. I think in the end that this just wasn't the book for me. I didn't find it nearly as emotionally compelling as her last book, The Night Swim, and now I'm worried about the copy of The Escape Room that I have waiting for me.
As for the audio itself, the dual narrators were pretty good. You have to listen on at at least 1.2x speed though, because Imogen Church (I think she's the one that does Liv's chapters) speaks like the audiobook narrator equivalent of the sloths in Zootopia.
January LaVoy was pretty good. She does the chapters narrated by Detective Halliday. If you're an audiobook reader, you'll be fine here, but I think it might have played better for me in hard copy so I could read through it faster and the frustrating parts didn't dragon on forever.
[2.5 stars, rounded up because the last third was pretty good for me]
Chipping Away at Mt. TBR, July 2022—Book 7/31