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Summary
“Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting blockbuster 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.”
-From Amazon.com
Review
This is the next book being read for the book club I’m in and I’m not sure if I would have stumbled across this book without them. I absolutely devoured this book in about 2 days, and it only took that long because I was busy and I needed some time to digest what I was reading. This story was utterly unique in my opinion and was filled with some interesting lessons about what could be a very complicated subject, but ultimately boiled it down to something simple. While this book did address themes of suicide and death, I would say that it was so gentle and eloquently done no trigger warnings would be needed, however, if that is a theme you do not like do be aware of that.
A world between worlds – The Midnight Library!
The Midnight Library was essentially like purgatory in a way. A place between heaven and hell when you die that allows you to try other lives to possibly not die. The library is filled with an infinite number of books which represent all the lives out there across all the universes. Some of these lives are parallel and some are perpendicular. Someone who is crossing over could experience other lives and, if the universe deemed it so, would allow them to live in that life and carry on if they fit. If no life was chosen, the root life (or the life of the person dying who arrived in the library ) would cease to exist. This honestly was such a beautiful way to describe this kind of in-between.
A journey to find what is wanted in life, or what isn’t. Nothing is perfect.
This book followed Nora to travel through hundreds and thousands of different lives to find a meaning to live. In the beginning of the book (not a spoiler) she ultimately committed suicide because she felt completely and utterly alone. She felt that she was pretty much a waste of space because everything was going wrong in her life – or that is what she perceived. Arriving in the library, she got to try all these various lives based on what she thought would be the perfect life and make her happy. She was wealthy, she lived abroad, she had a career she wanted and every other permeation. And in almost all of them she wasn’t what she would describe as happy. In all those lives there was something that she didn’t like – a worse relationship with her brother, being with someone that she couldn’t stand or just the general life style. Nora seemed to be searching for this textbook perfect life.
When she did find one she did like – a life that was honestly very beautiful – she wanted to stay but couldn’t. The narrator librarian, Mrs. Elm, seemed to express that she couldn’t find one because she wanted to live in her own root life and the universe couldn’t let her take over another life when she wanted to live. She ultimately fell back into her root life and from all the lives she lived, took those experiences and was able to make something positive in her new one.
A story of healing and self-awareness.
The story really showed how insularly we sometimes view our lives and that every small thing that happens is because of us. Through this book, Nora got to see how potentially fortunate she was and also become aware of some poor choices. She also was able to erase some of her regrets which seemed to weigh her down. As she was able to experience regrets in other lives she was able to see that she wasn’t missing out on anything. This removed a weight from her and allowed her to see the world in a new light.
Was just a little confused a few times.
The story itself is simple but there were moments that I was maybe slightly confused or felt maybe it was a little like…huh? The idea that a person can slide into another persons life felt a bit creepy to me to be honest. That you could juts slide into someone else’s consciousness and not only live through them for a bit but take over. That did feel like the root life was the most important life which kind of diminished the other lives in my opinion. I know this is super small but that just bothered me deep down. Just thinking about it from big picture but in a weird way, it also pulled at the idea mentioned in the beginning by Nora. Essentially that having a choice in life (depending on what you believe) can be an illusion. So this is a weird point to bring up. But I just kept feeling that as she’d slide into lives and take over the consciousness of someone else.
An absolutely beautiful story of challenges and gaining new perspectives.
This book was honestly beautiful! I absolutely loved it from the first page until the last one. It had so many good lessons, so many interesting things to share and just the idea of presenting it this way was creative. I felt Haig crafted a beautiful story that will stick with you and a beautiful library to journey through the story.
I will absolutely be reading this again over the years because it does feel like a story that you will take different things from it depending on where you are in your life. That is just the nature of this kind of story.
I give this a 5 out of 5 stars! An absolutely wonderful read and one I would recommend to others!
There’s some interesting other reviews on it like over at NPR and The New York Times.
Happy Reading!
