The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig (2020)
Nothing is going right for Nora Seed. She is 35 years old, she just lost her job, her brother is upset with her, her best friend moved to Australia, and her cat is dead. She is depressed and just wants to end it all. So she does. She takes an overdose of antidepressants and goes to sleep.
Then, just a midnight, she awakens in the Midnight Library. It’s that place where some people go that is between life and death, but still have a choice to live or die. The library is huge and is filled with endless books. The librarian is Mrs. Elm, the school librarian of Nora’s childhood. Mrs. Elm explains to her that the books are filled with alternative choices that Nora could have taken.
Nora is first given a book entitled The Book of Regrets, which is filled with regrets, large and small, in Nora’s life. As she ponders over some of the regrets, they fade away as they become meaningless. As she selects other books in the library, she gets a glimpse of what her life could have been had she not made some of her choices. For a brief time, she gets to sample the lives she might have experienced had she made different choices. What would have happened if she hadn’t gotten cold feet two days before her wedding to Dan? In the first book she selects, she finds herself outside a pub and is married to Dan. After she quickly sees that she was living in Dan’s dream life, she fades away and is back in the Library. So, she makes other book selections and tries on different lives.
Nora can remember events from her past “choices” so sometimes the people she meets in one “life” come back in another.
This was a quiet and gentle story as Nora sees what could have been and has to make the ultimate decision. Does she want to live or die? Will she be granted that choice, or will the decision be made for her if the library time passes midnight?
I loved this book.
Read: July 18, 2021
5 Stars
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