The Midnight Library was a book I did not know I needed. The story of Nora Seed is much like the story of many others out there, including myself. Her fears about life are ironically comforting.
Following her through each of the lives she could have lived, getting to experience the greatest and worst parts of each life, all of it was just a reminder that no matter which path we take, life will still find a way to remind us it’s all relative.
I loved The Midnight Library, flaws and all, and I could not get enough of Nora and her wild excursions.
Some spend their whole lives trying to find the meaning of life, and others will spend just a minute.
An infinitely long minute.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Published August 13th, 2020
Genre: Fantasy, Contemporary, Sci-Fi, Fiction, Adult, Mental Health
Pages: 288
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? A novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived.
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 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?
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.
Spoiler-Free
The Midnight Library is an infinitely large room full of all the lives that Nora could have lived. From the life of a pop star or an Olympic swimmer, a mother or a geologist, Nora goes through all of them in search of her perfect life.
This library is anything but simple. Every decision Nora once made will come back to bite her and she must learn to deal with those consequences.
With every life she encounters, Nora tries to get rid of an old regret. Whether saving a life or pursuing a passion she had long forgotten, she tries to fix it all.
Though in her attempts to make everyone happy, she must also figure out what it is that makes her happy. Nora wasn’t able to find happiness in her root life and with the entire multiverse at her fingertips, she discovered that figuring out her dream life was going to be a whole lot harder.
Nora is a simultaneously complicated and simple character, her regrets being so clear yet her desires so far out of sight.
After an attempt to take her own life, Nora must discover he own reasons for living through the lives of dozens of other Nora’s that she could have been.
What if she had pursued that band? Should she have said yes to the coffee date? What if she moved to Australia with her best friend?
She doesn’t know, but Nora will find out.
“Sometimes the only way to learn is to live” – Mrs. Elm, The Midnight Library
Spoilers
Of course, most of these lives aren’t as great as Nora thought they would be. No matter which route she would take, there would always be something missing from her heart: a passion she hadn’t pursued or a job she didn’t go for.
It was always something or someone.
Nora’s struggle to navigate these lives was part of what I found to make this book so captivating. While these are all versions of Nora, none of them are her.
This problem that she was constantly encountering made her a stranger in her own body. Nothing could drag that feeling away and with every life she jumped to, she was only reminded that none of it was really hers.
In the single minute that Nora had spent between life and death, she experienced countless lives that her alternate selves were living.
She got to experience the pub dream with Dan who turned out to be a cheater and a grump. She got to become an Olympic swimmer but still felt that emptiness she was so accustomed to feeling.
Nora got to experience a life with Ash, a surgeon she had once rejected while with Dan. She got to experience the life of being a mother.
Nora saw it all and yet it was never enough.
With each life she tried to save someone: her mom, her dad, her brother, her cat, but in each of those lives she still felt like a shell. Nora was an imposter in her own body and no matter what she did, she could never feel like herself.
“You can have everything and feel nothing” – Nora, The Midnight Library
After countless tries of making everyone else’s dreams come true, Nora learned that the best she could do was make herself happy.
Most of us out there, myself included, are living some part of our life by someone else’s hopes. Whether it is a parent, a sibling, or a mentor, they hold a weight over our lives. While it is an amazing thing to be inspired, there is a fine line between being influenced and being controlled.
As Nora Seed goes to prove, life will never be enough if we don’t start living it for ourselves. We will always feel like a stranger in our own body to some degree until we start making a home with what we have.
In a brief moment of chaos, a quick 60 seconds, she must make the biggest leap she has yet and choose to live the life she once had: her root life. Nora learns to cope with the lives she could have lived and make peace with the life she has, as well as the life she has yet to live.
As cliche as it sounds: life will always be full of regrets. We will always regret and so we must do the best we can and follow our guts. Do what makes you happy.
“Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.” – A Nobody Who Has Been Everybody, The Midnight Library
My Thoughts
While I did not give this book 5 stars, that was mostly because I guessed the ending halfway through. Despite anticipating the ending, I wasn’t any less excited to turn each page.
Each life Nora experienced was so vastly different that no matter how it ended, I was never able to guess what new thing would happen in each chapter.
One more thing that stuck out to me is that it seemed like there was a lack of depth. Again, the plot was interesting enough that this didn’t bug me as much as it usually does, but I looked at some reviews on Good Reads and found that some others felt the same.
I didn’t connect with Nora as much as I could have if Haig had spent a bit more time on allowing the reader to develop their own thoughts rather than telling us what to think.
“She realized that she hadn’t tried to end her life because she was miserable, but because she had managed to convince herself that there was no way out of her misery.” – Nora, The Midnight Library
A deep quote I must say, but written a bit too simply. This is one of many quotes that are written like this; written in a way that doesn’t push the readers to turn those gears in their brains.
Of course, this might be appealing to some.
As I’m writing this, I’m considering lowering my rating to maybe a 3.5 but I must stand by my 4. Despite its flaws, the story was nonetheless touching and I enjoyed reading it. The Midnight Library served as a reminder that we can’t know it all and that is okay.
That reminder made this a pleasant read for me and it might be a pleasant read for you too.
Final Thoughts
We know what we know and we don’t know what we don’t know. There will always be the question of “what if?” but we can learn to be more comfortable with it.
The Midnight Library covers loss, grief, regrets, and everything else that is life. It works to prove to us that regrets aren’t all that bad. To regret is to learn and to learn is to grow.
Everything that Nora wished she would have done differently, every life that she lived in places where she held regret, all of it made her and the little things in life that she once took for granted.
Now I want to close out this review with a quote that convinced me that I didn’t make a mistake picking up this book. If this finds the right audience, it may convince you to read it too.
“I have been so many things. On every continent on Earth. And yet, I have never found the life for me. I am resigned to being this way forever. There will never be a life that I truly want to live forever. I get too curious. I get too much of a yearning to live another way. And you don’t need to make that face. It’s not sad. I am happily in limbo.” – Hugo, The Midnight Library
