As a big fan of both The Night Swim and The Escape Room, I had high hopes for Stay Awake. I don’t know what happened to the author with this book, but unfortunately it just wasn’t up to the same level as the other two books. While the idea for the plot was intriguing, the execution turned out to be rather bland and I never really bought into any sense of danger or urgency for the main character.

My copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it.

I am here to say that this book was one of the best psychological suspense rides I have gone on. We meet Liv, who wakes up not knowing where she is, or what happened. she keeps retracing her steps and hitting dead ends, and her memory is pretty foggy, she doesn't remember what happened!!! Then we get into this crime that just happened, I was sitting here trying to find the connection which was hard to do. One thing I loved is that once we got to the middle of the book, things started to unravel, Liv and her writings, what happened 2 years ago, her condition, and its origin, it was an awesome ride. The book was a slow burn and there was a lot of back and forth between the past and now, wish the outcome was a little better, but one thing I liked how the author kept us in this cloud of confusion, like Liv was throughout the whole book, I liked that. Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

This book started off so real it pulls you right in. Trying to find out what is going on became a little much it was as if she didn't want to know as kept running away. I understand why but made the story drag a little.
Was an OK read for me.. was expecting more with rave reviews on this one

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for an early release of this book

3.5 This is a good slump buster. A fast-moving, propulsive plot. When I couldn’t focus on reading anything, this book held my attention. That being said, I don’t think it’s my favorite writing. In a word, it’s a bit basic. Some of the language especially in the dialog reads very flat and nondescript. Very middle of the road in terms of mystery. I would likely give it a 3 if it hadn’t pulled me out of a slump.

Stay Awake
by Megan Goldin
5 stars
When Liv Reese wakes up her memory restarts from two years ago, so when liv wakes up in the back of a taxi she has no idea where she is or what she's doing. She tries to return to the home she remembers and when a stranger answers the door she starts to freak out then she notices writing all over her hands STAY AWAKE. Two years ago liv had a good life living with her best friend and roommate and good boyfriend. That's all Liv can remember now she's in New York wandering around lost and even more scared after she sees a news report about a murder that had STAY AWAKE written on the window in blood.

I went into this book blind and I absolutely loved it I couldn't put it down and just wanted to devour it. I thought this was going to be about multiple personalities. It blew my mind that it was about memory loss and how it all came about. This is my first Megan Goldin book and defiantly didn't disappoint at all. It does get a little repetitive with Liv forgetting and going through the panic over and over but she also limits it getting to a certain point she has a balance. I recommend this to anyone that likes thrillers and can handle a little repetitiveness.

Thank you, Net Galley and St. Martin's press for the eARC for an honest review.

3.25
I am very conflicted with the rating I want to give this coz there were some parts I liked and some parts I didn't.

It started off with a bang and I was really invested at first like imagine having to wake up every morning and you don't remember anything that happened in the past 2 years of your life....a very chilling thought. So I was really interested in seeing how everything was gonna happen. But then I kept getting so annoyed with Liv, coz with every opportunity she had to get to know what happened to her she either ran away or she did something so idiotic that messed everything up because if I was in the same situation as her I would do anything and everything to try and find out what was happening to me.
Some parts were so repetitive and I knew what Liv was gonna do even before she did it because she just kept making the same mistake over and over again.

Also the ending, the thing that actually happened; I saw it coming abt a 100 pages before it was actually revealed and I didn't think the story would go there but it did and that was also very underwhelming.

With that being said what I really enjoyed in the book was the perspectives we got from the detectives. I wish we had more books with them because it was fun and interesting to follow along the case with them.

Every time Liv Reese wakes up, she has no memories from the last 2 years. She has mysterious and disturbing notes scribbled all over her hands. And she thinks she may have committed a serious crime.

I enjoyed Stay Awake so much. It was the perfect book to get me out of a serious thriller slump. It kept me guessing up to the end, because like Liv, I didn’t know which of the characters to trust!

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy. Stay Awake publishes August 9, 2022.

I couldn’t put this one down. I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it in one sitting because I was so intrigued. I love that it jumped back & forth between the present & the past.

This is a great mix of police procedural and psychological story. The ARC and pacing is spectacular. The storyline goes from past to present as the main character Liv, struggles to recapture her memories and avoid getting killed. The author does a great job of keeping the tension heightened. The reader will enjoy this intense page turning story where the reveal of the killer will surprise you.

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin is a psychological thriller about a woman named Liv who wakes up in the back of a taxi unsure how she got there. When she gets to her apartment, she finds that a couple is living there. She soon finds out that she cannot remember anything from the last two years. When she finds a knife in her possession and realizes that someone has turned up dead, she is slowly starting to convince herself that she may have committed a murder that she has no recollection of.

This book was a 4.5/4.75 stars that I am going to round up to a 5 star read.
The aspects of the book that I loved and enjoyed about this book far outway the few of them I would have changed or preferred.

I really, really enjoyed this book. It took me a few chapters to get into and kind of understand what was going on, but once I did, I could not put this book down. I devoured this book in only a few days.

I loved the premise of this book. It kept me guessing throughout the entire time. It was also very different from other books that I have read. I am an avid reader of thrillers and a lot of thrillers start to sound similar over time with the same premise. This book was entirely new and innovative for me. I enjoyed the unreliable narrator and thought her past story pieced together the mystery seamlessly. I also was unsure who to believe or trust throughout this story. I kept going back and forth and the mystery from the past had me on the edge of my seat when reading.

There were a couple aspects of the book that I did feel were a little unanswered in the end. The artist “Q” left me with some questions. Also there was another character, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers, that I was unsure exactly who hired him to do the things he did. Again, I am sorry about being vague but I do not like to write spoilers in my review. I guess there could have just been a little bit of a more detailed explanation at the end of the book to completely tie all of the loose ends.

One of the aspects I would have preferred when reading is if the chapters were labeled by perspective when reading. The book jumps from the perspective of each detective to the main character, Liv, as well as different timelines, so it is just easier when the chapters are labeled by which character you are reading at the time.

Overall though, this book was an extreme win for me. I loved the short chapters and I flew through this book very quickly. I finished this book very quickly and found myself really enjoying the characters in this book. I have read this and The Night Swim by Megan Goldin and both have been great. She is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin is a slow burn mystery. I didn't feel like there was enough action to categorize it as a thriller. I felt there were parts that could have been consolidated but I was really rooting for Liv to be able to figure out what had happened. If you love the amnesia trope, you will probably enjoy this.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

No worries - you’ll happily stay awake with this one!!

⏰ 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫: Liv wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea how she got there. She arrives at her apartment to learn she no longer lives there. And what’s with all the writing on her hands with notations like, “Stay Awake!”? Then Liv sees on the news there’s been a murder and the killer wrote those exact words… in blood. What is happening to Liv? Who was killed and did Liv have something to do with it?

💡𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: Goldin is 🙌🏼 GOLDEN 🙌🏼 in my mind with this fantastic follow-up to one of my 2020 favorites, The Night Swim (awesome book). The kicker in this one is that it’s not merely a mystery but an extensive emotional ride, moment to moment changes in my thinking - did Liv do it? Yup, smugly convinced she did. 10 seconds later I’m feeling so much compassion for someone who forgets a heap of time every time she wakes up (terrifying!) and am absolutely convinced she’s innocent. Ugh… the back and forth was riveting and I loved it (c’mon that’s goooood reading y’all!).

Goldin exposes this fear at a raw level, allowing the reader to FEEL the baffling, panicky terror that would grip a person in that circumstance, while at the same time leaving you to wonder how reliable Liv IS or can be. It’s genius. Read it and thank me later!

𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆𝗠𝗮𝗴𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

📚𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Mystery

😍𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: This is universally awesome - a FOMO book.

🙅‍♀️ 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: If you’re not in the mood for fast-paced.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and my homies (lol) at St. Martin’s Press for my advanced copy in exchange for my always-honest review and for the lack of sleep your book title promised!

This was such a twisty thriller I loved it! It was creepy exactly what I needed. I loved the ending and I highly recommend!

Liv Reese wakes in the back of cab lost and disoriented, with writing on her hands and arms and no memory of the past two years. Now she is the prime suspect in an murder investigation? Is someone after her? Who can she trust?

Imagine 50 first dates without the romance or the humor, no cute lightheartedness... instead it's a bit dark and mysterious. I wish I would have enjoyed this more. Between the summary and all the early raving reviews, I was expecting a 5 star thrilling read. Maybe my expectations were set too high. Maybe I just have an unpopular opinion. While the beginning caught my interest and I was instantly hooked. The reader is left just as disoriented and confused as Liv. Because of Liv's memory issues she has to relearn things over and over again, things hat us as readers know. I just found parts of the story implausible. Plot threads that didn't come together. I was left underwhelmed by the story end. It was an interesting premise, the author did well pulling together a unique plot, I just felt it wasn't quite cohesive enough in my opinion. The alternating timeline switches from past to present, as well as the alternating point of views helped move the story along. It It does make for a fast paced read though and I think a good book club book.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review honestly an advanced digital copy.

I really enjoyed Stay Awake. Thriller's are not my first choice on genre but I love to mix them in occasionally. This was everything I wanted in a thriller. It heavily reminded me of an episode of Law and Order and kept my interest throughout the whole book.

The main character Live Reese wakes up and doesn't remember where she is or how she got there. Every time she falls asleep she forgets what happened. All she can remember is answering a phone call at her desk two years ago. She has to try to figure out what is happening to her and who she can trust.

The other half of the book is from the detectives point of view as they try to solve a murder in which Liv may or may not be involved in. I don't want to give too many details away so I will leave it at that.

Again it reminded me of Law and Order. I usually get squeamish if scenes are too graphic but the author did a great job of letting us know what occurred without getting too detailed. This book was a quick read and something I looked forward to picking up again every time I had to put it down.

I absolutely loved this book! My first Goldin read, and it definitely won't be my last.

I'll start with saying that this book reminded me of the film Momento (excellent film, if you haven't watched it). Thinking back, I always really enjoy books and movies who have characters with memory loss. I like how they have to piece out their memories to understand the bigger picture.

This book has a dual timeline, present and past, which I always enjoy. It also has multiple POVs, and I'm learning that these are almost a must for me. And short chapters? Yes please! The story was engaging, fast-paced, and a total page-turner. I struggled to put the book down and would always read several chapters after I've told myself "one last chapter".

I did get confused a few times by the timeline, probably because of the main character's memory loss, but it was never enough to cause frustration on my end.

This was my first read from this author and unfortunately the writing style just didn't click with me. I found it difficult to get fully engaged with this story with the timeline flipping back and forth, and a main character with little to no memory (which makes it difficult to get to know her - something that's important for me as a reader). Ultimately this one just ended up not really being for me, but I'd be willing to pick up another book from this author in the future.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to an ARC via NetGalley!

Thank you Netgalley for this advance copy.

This book messed me up. I LOVED Megan Goldin's previous book , The Night Swim, and knew I had to read this one.

This is one of the most intense psychological thrillers I've read in 2022. When Liv falls asleep, she wakes up not remembering. She is stuck in a time loop from two years ago. When she wakes up one night in the back of a cab in NYC with a bloody knife, she finds herself on the run, but she doesn't know who or what she is running from.

Unreliable narrator isn't for everyone, but this is so exceptionally well done. Fast paced, multiple viewpoints/timelines. It's a ride.

I read one other book by this author so I was pretty excited for this one. I thought this book was rather interesting. Not in a bad way. It had me hooked from the beginning for sure. I thought the writing was very good as well.

The main character Liz tries to *stay awake* because when she falls asleep, she forgets everything—her last memory is from 2 years ago. I don’t want to give too much away, so if you want a very good thriller, check this one out! I deducted one star only because I wanted an explanation as to why the villain was a villain.

But overall, this was a pretty quick read and you’ll want to *stay awake* to finish it

Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress for an advanced copy of Stay Awake