Thank you so much to Netgalley, Megan Goldin, and St. Martin's Press for giving me an eARC in exchange for review!

I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller! It kept a great pace the entire way through, had interesting and dynamic characters, and switched perspectives clearly and flawlessly throughout the story. This is my first introduction into Megan Goldin, and I am really looking forward to delving into more of her work. I also found the character experiencing amnesia and repeatedly forgetting everything was done incredibly well, I felt sucked into her brain and almost as if I was forgetting the previous chapters based on the reset. However, I had the luxury of being able to go back and find little puzzle pieces along the way.

I took off a star because I found the ending was a tad lackluster, the "twist" and "whodunnit" felt a little disappointing after such a great build up, even though I did not guess the whodunnit! However, that was such a short portion of the book it barely took away from my enjoyment. That being said, I wish the climax of the book had been a tad more climatic.

I enjoyed The Escape Room by Megan Goldin, and The Night Swim is one of the most well-written thrillers I've ever read.

I did like this upcoming release of hers, but not quite as much as I liked her other books. The premise was interesting, and her writing is as strong as ever! However, the time jumps were a bit hard to follow, and I found the plot to be slightly predictable. Also, I was hoping for a more detailed explanation for the main character's memory loss in the end.

Read this if you liked Before I Go to Sleep or The Escape Room.

I absolutely loved STAY AWAKE!

I love unreliable narrators but am sometimes annoyed when them being "unreliable" is just them conveniently leaving out information in their dialog with the reader. However, this is a PERFECT use of an unreliable narrator. Our main character, Liv, has a form of amnesia that prevents her from remembering anything after she falls asleep. She wakes up and finds herself two years into the future from her last memory.

This book was twisty, fast paced, and I couldn't put it down.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted eARC!

I loved the dual-timeline of this book and the way the past timeline informs the future one - I found this woven together just beautifully and as questions would arise I would have them answered. I found the police investigation heavy but I enjoy '48 hours' so this didn't take away for me, and I enjoyed seeing how that entire investigation took place.
I found this book very shocking SEVERAL TIMES where I had to pause while I took I what I hadn't yet realized was happening, or the direction I hadn't realized we were heading in.
My 4 star versus 5 star is largely because I'm being picky: I found some sections a little awkward and didn't really like where this story ended up.

Megan Goldin said take 50 First Dates and make it a thriller!

Liv Reese wakes up in a taxi with no recollection of how she got there so gives the taxi driver her home address. When she gets there, she discovers two people living in her apartment. They force her out and act like she is crazy for showing up yet again to their place. She’s starting to think she’s crazy herself and then she notices ink-writing all over her hands – STAY AWAKE. Soon after, that same saying is written in blood at a murder scene. Did she commit murder last night and not remember?

It is a page turning, cannot stop reading type of book just to figure out what the heck is going on which may not be some people’s cup of tea, but for me it was such a different and unique thriller. I did like the dual timelines and the added perspective from the detectives because too much repeating the same thing over again every time Liv woke up would probably have been much too tedious. Since you yourself don’t know what is going on and who to trust, it makes for a speedy and enticing read. Highly recommend this book and will always be a fan of Megan Goldin! 4.5 stars!

Out Aug. 9th!
Special thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s press for my copy of Stay Awake!

Imagine every time you wake up, you only remember your life from two years ago and have to fight to stay awake. This is Liv Reese’s reality.

I liked the idea but the execution, not so much. It’s not the most original or anything either but I still thought Goldin could pull it off. I expected this to be fast paced and at first - it was. Then as you continue reading, it becomes so repetitive. We get it!!! Everything is literally explained to us 50 times every page.

On top the that, Liv is boring and whiney. She has no personality and is not someone you want to read as a main character. I also felt like she was kind of dumb and if she suffered so much from memory loss, I feel like there were better steps she could have taken to jog her memory. I don’t think she was doing enough to try to stay alive so like if she died, who am I to feel bad??? Why should we feel sad?? I felt like there were some plot holes too and it started to get obvious too.

The potential was there and I tried so hard to love this but I couldn’t. Thank you to St. martin's press and macmillan audio for advance copies of the e-book and audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

Stay Awake by Megan Goldin

A murder she doesn’t remember committing. A killer she doesn’t remember. Our memories can — or not — be deadly.

A good mystery/thriller novel. I liked the characters. There were many. Chapters kept going backwards in time & current time. Hard to keep focused on the year you were reading about. Much tension.

Thanks to Net Galley for sending me an advanced reader’s copy for my review.

This book certainly kept me up at night and on the edge of my seat! This story goes back and forth from present day back to what happened 2 years ago because Liv can't remember what happened in the last two years. She goes to her apartment and someone else lives there and it is all different. Her former work place has also changed and the co-workers that do recognize her mention that she has been to London, but she does not know why. Detectives Darcy Halliday and Jack Levelle do some great detective work as a team to try and figure who murdered a young man in an AirB&B which all ties in with Liv. The book started a little slow but really took off quickly and I was hooked.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this very riveting book.

Trust No One

A uniquely suspenseful thriller with so many twists, it will keep the reader guessing right up till the very end! No spoilers in this review! Snag your own copy of this page turner and be prepared to stay awake...



**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **

This had me so damn stressed from beginning to end. 😭 I'm usually not a super huge fan of the unreliable narrators in mystery-thrillers, but I thought Liv, who has lapses in memory every time she falls asleep, as a narrator was a pretty interesting twist on the trope. It was entertaining, albeit extremely stressful at times, to discover her memories along with her. The alternating chapters from the detectives working on solving a murder case Liv is suspected to be involved in really made me feel like the walls were closing in and had my heart racing. I thought this was a fun read, but I'm docking off some stars because I think some of the peripheral characters either didn't have fleshed out backgrounds and made me feel confused why they would make the choices they did, or they didn't have much of their background explained at all.

4 stars

This one was a twisty (and kind of creepy) thriller. It jumped around a bit between different characters and time periods without being confusing, and although some parts of the basic premise weren’t wholly unique, I’m a bit of a sucker for the type of suspense that builds up when there’s dramatic irony from the protagonist having memory issues and, therefore, being a bit of an unreliable narrator. As usual, I don’t love cop-centric narratives, and once again, I didn’t fully realize that a homicide detective was one of the main characters in this one (I really need to screen more effectively when I’m choosing my thriller-mystery-suspense reads); all that being said, I didn’t hate all parts of her perspective, and her scenes did complement the protagonist’s at many times. I did figure out who was likely the main villain before the end, but I still wasn’t disappointed with the reveal. Ultimately, this was a book I’d been thinking about and looking forward to for a while, and it didn’t let me down.

a fascinating concept that was bafflingly dismal in its execution 😭 this was one of the most disappointing thrillers i've read all year.

i have a great track record with megan goldin's writing. the night swim stirred up so many intense and mournful emotions in me, while the escape room was a highly entertaining and vindictive - if predictable - mystery. so when i saw stay awake available on netgalley, you can bet i smashed that request button!

unfortunately, this just wasn't the book for me.

the premise was immediately intriguing. liv reese awakens to find herself in a taxi with no memory of how she got there; in fact, the last thing she recalls is picking up a phone call on a gorgeous summer day in her NYC office... which turns out to have been two years ago. what happened in the intervening time? why can't liv remember? why are cryptic phrases scrawled all over her hands - one of which matches a bloody message painted at the scene of a recent murder? while liv goes on the run from the NYPD, grappling with severe memory loss, she must delve deep into her murky past to survive the present.

again, i'm just so disappointed. i feel like the book was so fixated on the concept, that the plot (and characters and overall stakes) took a far backseat - and stay awake was all the worse for it. the story really suffered from repetitiveness and over-explanation of technical details, including overwrought logistics behind the police work (e.g., handwriting analysis) and, particularly, the reason behind liv's memory loss. the writing in this book was bland and passive - and felt all the more haphazard with the transitions between character POVs, as liv's chapters are narrated in first-person present-tense, while detectives halliday and lavelle are in third-person past-tense. (maybe this is a function of the advance copy i read, and the final publication will read as more polished?)

moreover, none of the characters were compelling to me. nothing about liv stood out to me as individual or interesting; the two detectives were straight out of central casting, with zero distinguishing quirks to set them apart from the dozens other homicide detectives i've watched on tv / read about; and the side characters were barely fleshed out. in fact, the paltry cast made the book very predictable, as there is only one reasonable person who could be the perpetrator.

in all, stay awake was a really underwhelming reading experience. however, though this wasn't the book for me, i'm still looking forward to what megan goldin cooks up next!



many thanks to netgalley and st. martin's press for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Liv has an unusual diagnosis - whenever she falls asleep, she forgets the last two years of her life. So when she finds herself in a cab, she has no idea how she got there. However, she gives the cab driver her address, but is mystified when 2 total strangers open her door and tell her that they live in that home. The story unfolds with both the present day and 2 years prior. We learn that Liv had a successful job as a writer for a prestigious magazine, but all she has now is a bloody knife and writing across her hands and up her arms. She has lost her phone and cannot remember anything that happened recently.
This mystery/thriller is interesting and held my attention to the end.
I thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Imagine waking up every day and having no memory of the last two years of your life. Megan Goldin does a great job with insomnia and trauma. I couldn't put the book down!

As much as I was looking forward to reading/listening to Stay Awake, I have to add I really struggled with it. It was in credibly repetitive, and not in a good way. There were too many plot holes and inconsistencies. And one of the two narrators was overly dramatic, making it very difficult for me to stick with it. Overall, this one just did not work for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-copy of Stay Awake in exchange for my honest review.

Having recently finished “Stay Awake” by Megan Goldin, I am happy to have had the chance for the preview; thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press!

This was a story that I would definitely recommend to anyone in need of a zippy thrill. It was actually perfect to read while dealing with my own (minor) issues of sleep deprivation. The alternate chapters took a bit to figure out, but once I did, I was able to follow along with little confusion as Liv’s missing memories were revealed. When the “who done it” character finally showed their face at the end... it wrapped all the unknowns of this story up in a comforting way. Sleep tight!

I picked up Stay Awake last month when I was looking for a thriller to bust a reading slump and this novel was the perfect anecdote. A dual-timeline, dual-perspective story with just enough creepiness to cause a slight shiver up your spine, this is a great beach read to add to your bag for any summer trip.

WHAT I LOVED
🔪 The unreliable narrator trope is a key element to this story but it’s done in a really unique way. Liv, the protagonist, has no memory of the night before and has to piece together her few memories. You might think you know why she can’t remember, but there were some interesting twists that I didn’t see coming.
🔪Goldin does a great job of planting clues and red herrings throughout, which make theorizing a lot of fun. I had many ideas about what was happening and who the culprit was, but nearly all of my initial thoughts were wrong. The ending was very clever and the final reveal is one of those moments where you’ll think back and all of the clues planted along the way will come into place and everything makes sense.
🔪This novel plays around with time and perception in ways that reminded me of a Christopher Nolan movie. That obviously won’t be for everyone, but I really enjoyed that aspect and thought it differentiated the novel from others I’ve read in the genre.

WHAT I DIDN’T LOVE
🔪 Because information is revealed slowly as Liv learns more about herself and the events of the previous night, it took several chapters for me to feel comfortable with the book and have a solid sense of what was going on. Each chapter has a heading letting you know when it is taking place, so be sure to pay attention to those labels as they’ll certainly come in handy.

This was my second novel by Goldin and while the mystery and subject matter are very different from The Night Swim, I liked both novels equally. I read Stay Awake in just a couple of hours and can attest that you won’t be able to put this one down.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC. Stay Awake hits shelves in August.

I loved, loved, LOVED the concept for this book. The way the story unfolded was engaging and dynamic. Due to a certain plot choice by the author (trying so hard to keep this spoiler free because discovering what’s going on in half the fun!), this was a particularly fascinating story from the POV of the reader. The three different timelines (for lack of a better term) were interwoven in a cohesive way that was effective in keeping the tension palpable. And that tension was HIGH. You often hear about “books you can’t put down,” but this actually is one. I needed to know what was going on and flew through the bulk of it in one day. Plus the tension adds to the genuinely creepy and unsettling moments that occur, which at times made me physically feel uneasy.

My only complaint about this book is that I think the twists did a disservice to how wonderfully unique the premise and execution were. The reveal felt a bit predictable to me, and the reasons for it were at once not well explained and completely obvious because of how cliched the scenario was. That being said, I would easily recommend this to thriller fans. It was fun and refreshing take on the genre, and cemented Goldin as a go-to author for me!

But also I need to know more about the cat

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the ARC

I love mysteries that start fast and keep that pacing throughout. They’re perfect for pulling me out of reading slumps or book hangovers. All that to say, Stay Awake from Megan Goldin started with intrigue on page one, and it was the perfect book to pull me out of my latest book hangover. The story Stay Awake begins with the main character, known as Liv, who has lost her memory. We quickly realize she must stay awake to avoid losing her memory again. This synopsis may sound familiar to anyone familiar with anterograde amnesia, and there were moments when I was reminded of the movie, Memento. That said, Stay Awake provides an extremely unique twist on amnesia tying in a murder mystery and the mystery of how/when Liv lost her memory. Add to that dual pov’s (mc & detective) & dual timelines (past and present) and the story becomes incredibly interesting. Definitely worth bringing it beachside, if you’re looking for suspense.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an arc in exchange for my honest review.

What a wild ride!

Liv Reese, a foodie writer in New York, wakes up in the backseat of a taxi with no idea where she is nor how she even got there. It gets worse. When she arrives at her apartment, she discovers she no longer lives there. When she goes to work, she discovers she no longer works there….and as if that wasn’t hellish enough, she’s lost her phone, found a bloodied knife hidden in her clothes and is suddenly aware of “stay awake” written on her hand….what does it all mean?

High octane suspense, coupled with a fast moving plot, makes this a tense read. I couldn’t figure out the killer until just before the end.

I did struggle a bit with the alternating chapters at first, I know the purpose of the simulcast but I felt there was a huge amount of information dumping. I wonder if there could have been a better way to catch Liv up to speed without too much background information from her friends and the detectives? Regardless, it’s a unique combination and the author’s exploration into the premise that memory can be deadly held me captive.

I was gifted this advance copy by Meg Goldin, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.