I love Megan Goldin's writing style. Both The Escape Room and the The Night Swim were favorites of mine, and Stay Awake continues the trend of twisty, suspenseful thrillers that are hard to put down! I have read some reviews that say that the amnesia trope is overused, but, in my opinion, Stay Awake takes what could be an overdone theme and makes it fresh. The concept of recurrent amnesia every time Liv falls asleep is so intriguing, and Liv is a compelling character that makes you want her to succeed, even if you're not quite sure what she's done.

Unfortunately, the narrator of the audio version of Stay Awake was not for me. I found the pacing to be far too slow and the reader's voice to be monotone for what is supposed to be an action-packed thrill ride. So, in short, a great book, but the audio was not.

You are really thrown into the deep end with this one and just like Liv you have to put the pieces together and figure out what is happening. Liv wakes up with no memory of where she is or how she got there. She has things written on her hands/arms, she doesn't know the people living at her apartment and she doesn't even recognize herself. She has to figure out why she has to use the limited clues she has to learn why she has 'Stay Awake' written on her hands and find out if it has anything to do with the murder that is all over the TV.

I was intrigued from the get go to see how the puzzle was going to come together, but I found that the story was so repetitive which irritated me. I do appreciate how everything wrapped up in the end, but the journey to get there could have been a bit smoother in my opinion.

This was another great story from Megan Goldin! Her writing is always so fantastic, and I just loved the premise of this one. Every time the MC woke up again, I was so terrified for her! I can't imagine having that happen to me. Great job by Goldin! I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

I absolutely loved this book! I thought it was really good and kept me interested the whole time! I really wanted to know what attributed to the main character’s memory loss. Highly recommend this audiobook!

This book wasn't for me. I wanted to like it, I just couldn't get into it. I'm sure others will enjoy this it just wasn't for me.

This was fantastic ! This psychological thriller really messed with me. I loved it and highly recommend to anyone looking for an addicting suspense story.

'Stay Awake' was one of the year's most anticipated novels for me. Let's face it, who wouldn't be delighted with a blurb like that? On top of that, I greatly enjoyed Goldin's prior work, so I had high expectations. Unfortunately, 'Stay Awake' did not persuade me. Two characters tell the narrative. Liv Reese is one of them. Whenever Liv falls asleep, she wakes up with no recollection of the previous two years. She wakes up in the back of a cab with a bloodied knife in her pocket and the words "Stay Awake!" scrawled on her hands this time. Detective Halliday provides the other viewpoint. She and her partner are looking into the death of an unidentified guy who was discovered stabbed in an apartment. These two occurrences are, unsurprisingly, linked, but how? What surprised me the most was how difficult it was for me to get into this narrative. Several times during the first half of the book, I considered giving up. It seemed monotonous and as though nothing was occurring, especially in Liv's chapters, which were set in both the past and the present. I wasn't prepared for the amount of suspension of disbelief required by Liv's plot. She made blunders that made me roll my eyes, and if she had highlighted her sleep deprivation one more time, I would have yelled. I couldn't locate anything to bite onto. The pace was too slow, the intensity was too low, nothing was interesting or engaging, and I began to question whether this was the same author as 'The Night Swim.' Sheer drive, plus the fact that it was Megan Goldin, compelled me to persevere, and things began to brighten up a little bit halfway through the novel. But I believe it was too late for me, and I had lost most, if not all, interest. Sure, I still wanted to know what occurred, but even the reveal left me cold, and it all felt very unconvincing. It's a pity because the plot had a lot of promise. Looking at previous evaluations, it appears that I am in the minority. Perhaps my expectations were simply too high. But nothing I've stated here will prevent me from reading another of Goldin's works in the future, and I'm eager to see what she comes up with next. I'm sorry to say that this one wasn't for me.

🙌🏻 This was an enjoyable thriller! I love when I read something that also educates me on a psychological disorder, and in Stay Awake, the main character experiences short term amnesia, so each time she falls asleep she wakes up with no recent memory. When she awakens she finds she has written notes to herself urging her to “stay awake” and other information that she’s not able to otherwise retain. How terrifying would that be, to not know what year or season it is, where you currently live…or not recognizing yourself because your typically short hair is now much longer?

📖 Typically I am not a huge fan of the unreliable narrator but Goldin executes it flawlessly in this instance. I loved the merry-go-round of emotions and uncovering the events as she did, all the way back to the night of the trauma that landed her in the dissociative fugue.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC and audiobook.


Description from NetGalley:
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.

Oh man, I was nervous for Liv the entire time. The premise delivered on the entertainment The narrator did a good job. However, it would have been nice if the past Liv and present Liv were more distinct. The detective POV was fun. I had a good, entertaining time, which is definitely why I read thrillers.

Overall: 4/5

Liv Reese wakes up in a cab with no memory of where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at her apartment she finds a strange couple living there and a bloody knife in her pocket. Her hands are covered with writing telling her to stay awake and not to sleep. She soon realizes that two years of her life have gone by that she has no memory of and someone has been murdered in a case that may be linked to her. The book is a race against time to figure out what exactly she has done and why her memory is gone. The story bounced back and forth between two timelines (present day and two years ago) and two different perspectives (Liv and a pair of detectives).

It honestly took me a little bit to get into the book but once I did I was really sucked in. This is very well written. You really fee for the main character and her struggle. I listened to the audiobook for this and the narrators did a very good job making each character distinct from each other.

Liv is a very compelling main character. There are multiple points of view in this but you spend a good chunk of the time with Liv both in the present day and the past. Her sections of the book are amazingly well written (not to say the rest isn’t it all is). Her sections are dripping with anxiety and fear and it just gets thicker the further into the book you get. You get this overwhelming feeling that something terrible is going to happen to her and you just want to step into the book to help her, or at least I did. My one complaint is that certain sections of her narrative are very repetitive and it gets tiring to read when you’ve seen it for the 10+ time (with the only further problem is that this repetition is 100% plot important). I think the book does a pretty good job explaining her memory loss situation and what that means for her life in general.

I really liked the main detectives in the story, especially the female detective. I appreciated how she advocated for Liv for the entire book. Her backstory was a little shoehorned in at times but it really did add to the overall plot/storyline so I won’t complain about it too badly.

I’m a fan of dual timelines in books when they are well done and I think that it was very well done here. The past timeline gradually creeps up to meet the present timeline and I think it melded perfectly at the end.

Overall I really did like this story. It does get a little bloody at parts but it isn’t anything over the top and gruesome. I highly recommend this for fans of the mystery/thriller genres.

Immediately engaging and full of suspense!
“Stay awake! Don’t sleep. You forget everything when you fall asleep.” Imagine seeing that written all over your hands and arms when you’ve just woken up disoriented and without any memory over the past two years. It’s an intense, and dreadful experience. This happens to Liv Reese every time she wakes up. She forgets all of the progress she makes in understanding her life when she falls asleep. This also makes her vulnerable to someone who wants her dead.


Throughout my listening of Stay Wake, I was gripped by the intensity of the narrator when she would repeat “don’t sleep” and “stay awake”. You feel it in your bones. It helps you feel the terror that Liv must feel as she reads those words aloud. Liv is wandering around trying to find familiar people, her roommate in particular. But it’s been two years since they’ve lived together. So who can she trust?

“Trust no one. Don’t answer the phone.”

Of course, Liv ignores her personal notes to herself half of the time. She has instincts that alert her to trouble, but she’s so confused that she sometimes ignores them. Just when we think she’s about to find out who is after her, and what kind of trouble she is in, she gets detoured by people who “know her” and want to help. They’re all ready to explain everything, but she doesn’t stick around.

It was frustrating each time Liv fell asleep. You’re hoping that she will fight off sleep for days at a time so she can find her way to safety, but that’s impossible. Megan Goldin expertly holds readers in a grip of suspense. Liv can’t trust anyone, and readers can’t decide if anyone around her is truly there to help her. Someone is desperate to find her. Discovering the true face of evil in this story is so unexpected, I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming!

I am a new fan of Megan Goldin, and I cannot wait to read more of her books!

Thank you so much to St Martins Press and Netgalley for providing an e-arc and ALC of this! All thoughts and opinions are still my own.

I absolutely loved Megan Goldin's previous novel, The Night Swim. So when I saw this next release, I knew I needed to get my hands on it immediately.

The premise of this was fascinating and lead to a very eerie and unsettling atmosphere for the story. I loved how we knew from the get go that we were in an unreliable narrators head, trying to solve the mystery along side her.

I also loved that this was told in dual narration so that we got to see the mystery plots slowly merge together.

In general, I think Megan Goldin's books have amazing premises and fantastic writing. There is a general feeling of unease you get while reading/listening to this story that I loved.

But while I loved this premise and really enjoyed the first portion of this story, it lost steam for me around the middle. While I loved the concept of a woman forgetting her memories every time she fell asleep, in practice it got somewhat repetitive. We would revisit scenes and people and discussions multiple times because the heroine didn't remember doing it 50 pages ago.

But what really brought this book down for me in the end was the ending itself. This has a quintessential villain monologue which isn't my favorite ever. On top of that, while I didn't see the twist coming, I also didn't remember who they were. I actually had to pause the book to try and remember who this person was.

Overall this thriller was a bit of a mixed bag. I thought it was unique in it's premise and style but wasn't perfect in execution. This is definitely an author I plan to pick up more from in the future though! I think her ideas and writing are fantastic and I can't wait to see what comes next.

I loved this new take on the insomnia thriller. Memory loss thrillers can be hit or miss from me. I thought this was refreshing and I loved the take on chapters starting over with our character back at the beginning of her memory loss without it being very obvious.

This was a great mystery thriller. Definitely made me feel crazy to see someone who tends to forget everything as soon as you wake up is idk just crazy. The narrator definitely made it hard for me to stop listening. She did a great job with the dialogue and voices.

When Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi without a phone or her keys, she heads to her apartment to wake her roommate to let her in. The woman who finally comes to the door is not Amy, but an angry woman who tells her she and her husband live there, do not know her or Amy and want her to go away. She has writing all over her hands and body saying STAY AWAKE and DON'T SLEEP. She also has a bloody knife wrapped in a shirt! What is going on? She remembers working, but she looked very different then. Meanwhile, an unidentified businessman is found dead in an apartment with a single knife wound to his heart. The woman they see leaving the apartment on the CTV has long hair and is in a hurry. Detectives Darcy Halliday and Jack Lavell are on the case, although Jack is sure they know who killed him and are looking for the evidence to prove it, but Darcy wants to follow the evidence first, before deciding who the killer is. How will Liv figure out what is going on or who to trust when she loses her memory every time she falls asleep?

Wow, this is a story that will have you guessing throughout and flipping the pages to get to the satisfying conclusion. The story is told in dual timelines (one present day and the other two years before), and they were both done very well. There was no confusion of the timelines, and both gave clues to what was happening. I found the premise very different from anything I had read before and was a bit leery at the beginning, but with each chapter, I was pulled into the book more. We don't know much about Liv at first, but as the story progressed, and I began to get to know her and what she was dealing with, I felt so bad for her. Was she going to end up being caught and thrown into jail for something she doesn't remember doing? Did she kill the man? Once I got into this book, I didn't want to stop reading or listening. This was a thriller that pulled me in completely. I did figure out what Liv was trying to remember before it was revealed, but it did not diminish my enjoyment of the story at all. If you are looking for something a bit different, something with twists, great characters and a well-developed plot, then I recommend you pick up Stay Awake by Megan Goldin. I did a read/listen, but mostly listened. Two of my favourite voice actresses, Imogen Church and January LaVoy are the narrators and they definitely pull the listener into the story. They use their voices, expression, tone and pacing to add suspense and atmosphere to the story. I definitely enjoyed listening to this one.

"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 now lives in her apartment and forces her out in the cold. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it’s missing, and in its place is a bloodstained knife. That’s when she sees that her hands are covered in black pen, scribbled messages like graffiti on her skin: STAY AWAKE."

Obviously this description had me requesting on NetGalley and excited to get approved by St. Martin's Press. This is a clever plot that makes for a bit of a repetitive story due to the main character's memory issues. I enjoyed the mystery and needed to know what happened to Liv and the identity of the villain. I struggled with Liv and her condition since it seems there's a more direct way to deal with such an intense psychological problem but if you can suspend disbelief around some events, I think you'll enjoy this book.

I enjoy Megan Goldin and will definitely read more from her in the future.

Liv (our MC) remembers nothing from the past two years, and on her arm is written: “stay awake.” Liv realizes that when she falls asleep, she forgets everything. The local news reports that a murder occurred near where Liv woke up. And on the victim’s window, written in the victim's blood, is the message “stay awake.” Why is this the same message on her arm? Why can’t she remember where she was the night before? Now, Liv is on the run for a crime she doesn’t remember.

Pegged as similar to Memento and Before I Go To Sleep, Stay Awake became one of my hotly anticipated reads for August! I love a good amnesia storyline.

The story is told in dual POVs - Liv and Detective Halliday (the detective investigating the murder). I love piecing Liv’s life back together. But as the story progresses, I enjoy Det Halliday better than Liv. I think that’s a product of the narration. Liv’s narration is slow, deliberate, and methodical, which makes sense as she tries to recover memories. But the listening experience becomes uneven when you pair Liv’s slower voice with Halliday’s diligent yet quicker detective work. It pains me to write this because I love audiobooks, but I would recommend reading the physical book or ebook for Stay Awake rather than listening to the audiobook.

Stay Awake was the second Megan Goldin book I have read; previously, I read The Night Swim. Both books were five stars, and @megangoldinauthor has become an automatic buy author. I am excited to read anything she comes out with next and go read all of her backlists. With that said, Stay Awake had a different premise than any book I have read. The main character, Liv Reese, wakes up with no memory of how she got where she is; nothing makes sense. She has words written all over her telling her to "Stay Awake." The play on the memory challenges of Liv and how that played into the story was flawless and is what made the book different from other mystery/thriller books.

Through NetGalley, I received the opportunity to listen to the audio version of the book. The narrator did a great job, kept my attention, and helped add to the story's atmosphere. Whether you read or listen to this book, I highly recommend it.

This was my first book by Megan Goldin and it did not disappoint! It kept me on the edge of my seating, hoping she doesn't fall asleep again, and guessing who the "bad guy" was. I will definitely be looking for more of her books!

#StayAwake
#NetGalley

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Super wild read! like woah! will recommend (even though it seems like everyone is reading it anyways lol), would buy!