artsy musings of a bibliophile

I started reading Before I Go To Sleep with a lot of expectations and well, it all turned out to be a very twisted, almost unemotional, ending to a promising story. The cover is very striking and the synopsis had me intrigued from the get-go.

However, every day Christine has to go through the part where she discovers she's 47 and not in her twenties. Due to these descriptions, I felt that she found herself ugly just because she found her skin to be wrinkly and saggy. It is normal for her age; but the descriptions had me in doubt about her looking more as if she's 75 and not 47. And the repetitions didn't really help, of course.

Moving on, I have two rather contradictory opinions about this book. The first one veers me towards everything that is likable in the novel. The second of course, makes me want to roll my eyes at the un-likability factor when the mystery part is taken into perspective.

I liked Christine, her character grew very stably and it was very moving for me to read about her lost hopes at a future. And that feeling, of being helpless of knowing that, in her own words, "The worst thing is that I don‘t even know what I don‘t know. There might be lots of things, waiting to hurt me. Things I haven‘t even dreamed about yet."

Before I Go To Sleep could have easily deserved 4 stars but the whole chase didn't help the case. The ending was bland, cold and not even in line with the rest of the story. Only a single paragraph telling the hours she spent reconciling with Ben. Taking into account that with almost no contact for years, her real husband suddenly realizes that he wants to be with her? After all this time? Just...wow. Plus, the son. It seems highly unlikely that they didn't try to contact Christine on a regular basis.

These are just a couple of nagging little thoughts I have been having. From the book, it is apparent that Claire is on seemingly normal terms with Adam. And if there is that chance then how come Adam doesn't know that his parents are apparently back together? Why all the unnecessary miscommunication?

Moreover, when she had all those glimmers or flashes of memory something doesn't set in right. In all of the book, she is unable to see a single memory flash of Ben and then she has it finally. Plus, she also comes to know of all the time they spent together shortly after that. Maybe the particular truth triggered her memory, but how far can fiction be twisted?

However, S.J.Watson made a good effort at writing about something written many times before and forming a novel story line. I wanted to more than like Before I Go To Sleep, the writing was beautiful and the expressions profound. Her sorrow at the uneventful turnout of her life stretching into a long wait of dying every day waiting for the actual death to arrive. Of feeling lost. But, in the end, I just keep getting the feeling that something small, something crucial is truly amiss from the story.