August Review of The Midnight Library

Date 8.21.22 - 8.22.22

 The midnight Library

Written by Matt Haig

About from Goodreads.com

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 dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.

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 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

Enjoyed

• It's humor. Nora had me laughing at her sarcasm. 

• How Haig words things

• This story resonates with me because of Nora’s mental health

• The storyline

• Make me think of getting back into philosophy

• How this book really made me think about life in general 

• What I took from the book.how our choices in life are beautiful and that no matter what life won’t be easy but, in the end it is beautiful 

Disliked

• A few grammar issues, but that isn’t the end of the world and it wasn’t to the point it was annoying 

Quotes I love

• “Nora dear, it’s natural to worry about your future.” -Mrs. Elm, page 1

• “Oh right. Great. I was thinking of doing a half-marathon and then I remembered I hate running” - Nora, Chapter 2

• “Pressure makes us, though. You start off as coal and the pressure makes you a diamond” - Neil, Chapter 3

• “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves” -Nora (originally said by Henry David Thoreau),Chapter 24

• “I think it is easy to imagine there are easier paths,’ she said, realising something for the first time. ‘But maybe there are no easy paths. There are just paths. In one life, I might be married. In another, I might be working in a shop. I might have said yes to this cute guy who asked me out for a coffee. In another I might be researching glaciers in the Arctic Circle. In another, I might be an Olympic swimming champion. Who knows? Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.” - Nora, Chapter 44

 4.5/5 ⭐️

Info

Trigger warning- Emotional Abuse,Death of a Pet, Suicidal Idealization, Overdose, Isolation, Grief, Regret

Spice level-  2/ 5 🌶

Numbers of pages- 288

Publish date-September 2020

Awards-Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction

Genres- Fantasy, Mental Health, Sci-Fi

If you deal with suicidal thoughts call the national helpline-988

Please be safe you are loved, even if you don’t think you are. YOU ARE VALID. YOU ARE IMPORTANT!