South Shore Readers discussion

Our July book is Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson.

We have an in-person meeting on the last Sunday of July to discuss this book. Feel free to join us at that discussion....but even if you can't join us in person, you can discuss the book here online.

Oh I totally forgot that this was July's pick. I wanted to participate on this one. That's weird, too, because I thought I would have gotten an e-mail (I have it set up to remind me 7 days beforehand).

This was a great book! I read it by chance and really enjoyed it. Where is the July meeting being held? Debi

I started to read this early, since I've been unable to finish a book yet in time for meetings. I finished in two days. Can't wait to discuss!

What's our next read so I can give myself another heads start?

Do you guys discuss only in person, rather than on-line?

We haven't picked our next few books Jackie, we'll probably do that when we meet but there is a running list of book club suggestions under "Ideas for Future Book Club Discussions" if you want to check it out, give you input, add your own suggestions, etc.

We do both Jason. If people can't come to the meeting they can discuss here or if someone just has to say something right away they can do it here too. We did a lot of online discussing during "House of Leaves," I think we all needed the support to keep going!

Jackie & others, here's the link to the thread where people throw out future book choice ideas: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...

We will pick the next few at our meeting on July 29th. We haven't picked a location yet...we may fall back on our default location of the cafe area of Barnes & Noble at Derby St. in Hingham...unless someone else has another suggestion! :)

Thank you Jessica and Joanie!

I vote for somewhere that serves cocktails. Not that I don't love me some coffee but the summer just seems to call for drinks! I am up for anywhere in Derby Street (with a liquor license that is) or anywhere in the surrounding area. Has anyone tried the Summer Shack? What about that?

I vote for booze and derby street. rustic kitchen is always great, summer shack looks like it has great cocktails (food limited to seafood.)

Summer shack also has some non seafood options... I haven't tried any but I've heard that their fried chicken is actually pretty good. (not that Melissa cares about that. ;) )

Booze, yes. Chicken, no. :)

Here's the Hingham Summer Shack menu: http://www.summershackrestaurant.com/...

I tried to comment last night but it disappeared.

Maybe if we give you enough booze Melissa you'll think chicken is a good idea!

What if we do outside at the Rustic Kitchen if it's nice and not 100 degrees and do the Summer Shack and sit inside if it's rainy or too hot?

Rustic Kitchen sounds good. We can save Summer Shack for the not so summer-y months. I will update the event.

I picked up my copy of Before I Go to Sleep at the library yesterday. I should be able to start reading it later this week. I am really looking forward to it.

rustic kitchen! i'm so excited, they have great drinks and lovely salads. Sold!

I'm so excited!!! Planning to start this weekend-seems like it will be one I won't want to put down.

I started it this morning on the train. So far I am enjoying it a lot. In some ways, it is remniscent of the movie Memento (which I loved BTW).

I just started it last night and I thought the exact same thing as Jessica: Memento. Although this main character seems to (view spoiler)[be suffering from a couple different forms of amnesia, rather than just the one (anterograde amnesia) that Leonard had in the movie (hide spoiler)].

I'm at 80%. Until now, I've had it in the back of my mind (obviously) that (view spoiler)[Ben had something to do with Christine's attack. Either he is the one who actually attacked her, perhaps in retaliation for cheating on him, or he's involved somehow in the coverup. I say this because this book, although it starts with an interesting premise, has somehow devolved into pretty standard "Sleeping with the Enemy"–style fare. But now that I'm at 80%, I'm questioning why it seems no one else besides Christine ever has interactions with Ben. Plus there was a gap in time between him leaving her at Waring House and him coming to get her again. I'm wondering if it's really Ben that she's currently with or if it isn't the attacker in disguise (hide spoiler)].

Goodreads notifications are currently down so no one will probably ever see this, but whatever. I'll probably finish this tomorrow. Maybe it'll turn out I'm way off the mark, but something tells me I'm not...

Ok, I finished. I think in the end I was pretty disappointed overall, mostly because of the strong premise that I found really interesting. I guess Watson let me down. If anyone is interested in my review, it is here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I finished a couple of nights ago. Overall, I enjoyed it. I haven't completely digested my thoughts on it yet.

(BTW, I just noticed that goodreads posts what we each rated the book in the message header here in the thread...pretty cool!)

Jessica wrote: "BTW, I just noticed that goodreads posts what we each rated the book in the messag..."

Not just that, but they directly link to our reviews. If you write a review, Jessica, please re-post to call my attention to it; I'd like to read it.

this book is not what i would call great literature, but more like a read on the beach/spend a sunday afternoon reading type of book. nothing about it is earth shattering, but i thoroughly enjoyed the time spent reading it. It was "memento" done in novel form.

Melissa wrote: "It was "memento" done in novel form."

Except it was done poorly. I feel like Nolan's film really captured the feeling of frustration that Leonard was experiencing as a result of his anterograde amnesia. But that was missing in the book, probably as a result of Christine's form of amnesia being stretched beyond its accepted definition, so it was hard for the author to reestablish Christine's frustration every morning (I felt it was glossed over on most mornings for the sake of story progression). Also, I feel like the plot totally collapsed on itself. Even in the dénouement, a lot of the conversation seemed forced and it was transparent that it was only there as an info dump. I think my high expectations of this made everything worse; I was really disappointed.

perhaps that is the key: low expectations. momento was an amazing film, and perhaps the only correct vehicle to explore the depths of anterograde amnesia without feeling forced. i don't think that this author is something magical, or even memorable. for me, it provided a fleeting moment of entertainment, similar to having eaten a store-bought cookie. seeking more enriching experience while reading this novel would seem futile. having said this, i still stand by my rating. five stars for keeping me amused/entertained for a small window of time.

I too took the book for what I expected to get out of it -- a form of entertainment and not necessarily a great work of literature or a true to life tale of someone with amnesia. It kept me captivated and I was willing to overlook some plot issues.

Will it rank amongst my favorite books of all time? probably not.

Will it stay in my mind for some time after I finish reading it? most likely

I haven't seen Memento yet (it's on my list) so I can't offer anything to those comments. I really enjoyed it. Was the plot in any way genius, no. Did it keep me turning the pages furiously, yes, and I'm grateful to that. I haven't read a book like that in a while. I had suspicions about Ben, but I also had suspicions about her doctor/therapist. [I was waiting for him to be Adam, and the true test would be her remembering his face/voice/etc.] I felt like it wrapped up very quickly.

If you liked this book, Memento will blow you away. It is my favorite Nolan, by far.

A lot of what I'm about to write is probably a repeat of what I said yesterday (minus the sangria induced word retrieval issues) but I'm adding my two cents here for all posterity.

I was a bit annoyed at the beginning of this one. As most of you know I have worked with people with brain injuries for over 10 years and in that time I have NEVER seen anyone whose memory resets every night. It doesn't happen. People with short term memory impairment forget what happened within minutes. They hate you, you leave the room, you come back 5 minutes later-they're excited to see you! They go to get their coat, they get as far as the closet and forget what they went there for. That's what it's like-not this 50 First Dates type of memory deficit.

I read in the back that the author based some of his information on two real cases of amnesia. I read about the first one and it the man had undergone surgery for seizures and he was not able to transfer memories from short term to long term memory. That is more plausible although still rare. I don't know about the other one-maybe I'll read it someday. Once I saw that the author at least took a look at some actual case studies (and once I got sucked into the book a bit) I decided I would suspend disbelief and just go with the story. Not always easy for me especially when something is supposed to be realistic but overall I ended up enjoying-looking at it as a summer beach type of read helped.

I agree that Memento was much much better-and way more stressful! This kept me reading but didn't make me tense-again, why it worked as a beach read.

I see you guys picked Defending Jacob for September. Also a beach read but a really really good one. I liked it a lot and I think you will too.