About the Book
Title: The Midnight Library
Author: Matt Haig
Series: none
Genre: Magical Realism, Fiction
Pages: 288
Edition Read: Paperback
Dates Read: February 26-29, 2024
Blurb: Between life and death there is a library.
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.
The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren’t always what she imagined they’d be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.
Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?
Review
**TRIGGER WARNING: Talk of depression and suicide**
This book gave me a lot of feelings. If you are looking for a book that will make you re-examine your life, this is the book for you (although please be mindful of the trigger warnings, I was not quite prepared).
Nora is dealing with a lot of issues, particularly major depression, and while essentially in a sort of limbo after a suicide attempt, she finds herself inside the Midnight Library. It shows her what her life would be like if she had made different choices by looking at different books (also, this limbo area looks like different things to different people – Nora likes books, so library). What would have happened if she had married her ex-fiance? What would have happened if she had continued pursuing music? What would have happened if she had stayed in contact with her brother? What would have happened if she had decided to go into arctic marine biology?
Her life could have diverged into any number of different courses based on a decision she made and she gets to see what each one of those choices looks like, hoping to find one that would have made her life better. It was a really fascinating character study and something that was a bit frightening, but also very relatable. Who among us hasn’t constantly asked “what if?” at various points in our lives? I have so many “what ifs” in my life and I have spent a fair amount of time wondering about them. Nora learns that while she can fantasize about how life would have been better at any of these points, that doesn’t make them perfect. There are still hardships, still challenges and difficulties to overcome, but that’s what makes them real. That’s what makes them part of life.
This book is a LOT and probably not for everybody, but I absolutely loved it.
GoodReads rating: 5 stars
Categories: Books I've Read
Life With No Plot 
I enjoyed this as well! Good review!
Thank you! It was so good, wasn’t it!
This was such a good read.