The Midnight Library
Ratings1,638
Average rating3.8
The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.
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.
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This book has an unexpected start but then the rest just rushed over me. The ebb and flow of Nora's decisions are believable and feel so personal. Regret over the roads not taken is common but Nora let herself be ruled by it, worn down to her last thread of sanity. The Midnight Library is an interesting concept elevated to an exploration of Self, identifying internal and external motivators, and a search for happiness that almost reaches Odyssean proportions. Nora's journey feels truly earned as she realizes throughout her many lives that her decisions and their consequences extend beyond herself. The definition of a “perfect” or “good” life is completely subjective and this book fearlessly runs the gamut. I'll definitely be reading this one again!
I wasn't even remotely interested in this book until recently, in dealing with grief, but the idea to pick it up came to me when I needed some comfort about the possibilities. I loved it.
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