The Midnight Library

A little about the book

Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

A little about the author

Matt Haig was born in Sheffield, England in 1975. He writes books for both adults and children, often blending the worlds of domestic reality and outright fantasy, with a quirky twist. His bestselling novels are translated into 28 languages. The Guardian has described his writing as 'delightfully weird' and the New York Times has called him 'a novelist of great talent' whose writing is 'funny, riveting and heartbreaking'.

The Midnight Library book review

The Midnight Library definitely has torn reviews. While the vast majority on Goodreads are positive, leaving the book with 4.21 stars from nearly 160,000 ratings, there are some in the bookish community who feel like the writing is too casual about serious things, like mental health and suicide… and I tend to agree. The first sentence of the first few chapters really made me uncomfortable. But maybe that’s the point. It definitely gets you thinking about how precious life is and how real mental health struggles are.

All of that said, I did enjoy the book. I liked the premise — while I don’t feel like I have a ton of regrets in my life (or that I’d want to explore living an alternate life where I chose a different path), I do think it’s relatable and interesting that even seemingly minuscule decisions could have such a large impact on where you end up. There were some ‘books’ (lives) Nora chose from the shelf that I wanted to read more about and some that I wanted to read less about, and the ending was a bit predictable, but otherwise it was a really enjoyable, quick, and easy read. Matt Haig’s style of writing definitely kept me wanting to read more.

Definitely recommend if you are interested in time travel or looking for a more approachable fantasy read: ★ ★ ★.5