I don’t know if you can call yourself a fan of an author if you’ve only read one of their books. But if they only have one, that’s hardly their fault. I read Before I Go to Sleep a while ago. Certainly before it become what I understand to be a pretty average movie. I haven’t seen it. I liked the book. It’s twist caught me by surprise through clever writing and the now infuriating troupe of the unreliable narrator (more on that next week). So I was more than happy to jump into his second book: Second Life. Once upon a time, I called myself a fan of SJ Watson.
“She knows what she’s doing. She’s out of control. She’s innocent. She’s guilty as sin. She’s living two lives. She might lose both…” I was drawn in by these conflicting ideas and brutal murder. Julia learns her sister is violently killed in an alley in France, the killer is at large. With no leads or suspects, Julia becomes obsessed with finding truths and answers, and she is willing to risk it all. Her sister isn’t a saint. She uses the darker side of the web to find … friends. Our narrator thinks in order to trap the killer, she must mimic her dead sister. She begins her second life and falls in lust. This, of course, fucks everything up.
I shouldn’t judge a book on ‘plausibility’; my favourite novels include magic and aliens. However, things can go too far. Julia is consumed with finding out the truth she puts herself in great danger. I love my sister but if I believed she was murdered by a sex mad bloke off the Internet I wouldn’t start meeting sex mad blokes off the Internet. Would you? Nothing is going to bring her back, will the truth really bring her closure or does she just enjoy the thrill of her new secret life?
The truth will shock. There are no clues to the reveal making it seem contrived. I fear this is a fashionable summer read that will be lost with the other shocking, unreliable narrator crime books with massive twists that all merge into one when discussed at dinner parties. ‘I couldn’t believe it was the husband all along, wait I think that was someone else. Wasn’t it the long lost twin brother? Never mind, did you see Bake Off last night?’ Success is a tough act to follow, I await the third to know if I am a fan.
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