Christine wakes up every day in a strange bed, with a man she doesn’t know. When she looks in the mirror, she sees a middle-aged woman she doesn’t recognise. A rare condition means that every time she goes to sleep she loses herself again. Gradually, with the help of a doctor and her ongoing diary, she manages to piece together bits of her past. Why has she found a picture of herself pregnant – and where is her child? Who did she used to be? And why has she found a note from herself, telling her not to trust her husband?
You should read it because: this huge bestseller caught the public imagination with its intriguing premise, and is a supreme example of how to use narration to cloak things from the reader. In this case the narrator is made unreliable by simply not remembering, but yours could also be lying, or traumatised, or unable to tell us the truth for other reasons. Arguably the book launched the current ‘marriage thriller’ genre that is so popular (see also Gone Girl) and is soon to be a major film with Nicole Kidman.
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