The Midnight Library
Ratings1,720
Average rating3.8
A different take on alternate universes. I thought it would be repetitive and mundane but I found this book really moving and enlightening. I think it does a great job of addressing depression and regrets.
3.5 stars. Totally solid book with a likeable protagonist and some thought provoking ideas. The book may never reach any soaring heights, but also never drags on or gets lost in pretension or self-congratulation. Basically, I feel like I could recommend this book to nearly anyone and be assured that it will be an entertaining read for them — but I also wouldn't expect this to become anyone's new favorite book that totally blows their mind.
Après avoir découvert Matt Haig avec deux livres de non-fiction, j'avais envie de le connaître sous une autre facette, celle de romancier. J'ai alors choisi son dernier roman, paru en 2020 : The Midnight Library.
Ce roman nous propose de suivre l'aventure pseudo-fantastique de Nora Reed, une trentenaire anglaise souffrant de dépression, alors qu'elle semble avoir perdu toute envie de vivre. Au seuil de la vie et de la mort, elle découvre une incroyable bibliothèque géante où chaque livre lui donne accès à une de ses vies possibles, si elle avait fait un jour un choix différent.
Continuer la natation pour faire plaisir à son père et espérer concourir aux Jeux Olympiques ? Suivre le rêve de son frère de devenir une rock-star dans le groupe de musique qu'ils avaient formé ensemble ? Devenir une scientifique en mission sur les glaciers arctiques ? Poursuivre ses études en philosophie ? Ouvrir un pub avec son ex-fiancé qu'elle a quitté juste avant le mariage ? Terminer le roman qu'elle avait abandonné ? Accepter l'invitation de son voisin à prendre un café ?
Autant de choix et de vies que Nora regrette, alors qu'elle se sent abandonnée, inutile, coincée dans une vie qui ne lui convient pas : son frère ne lui parle plus, sa meilleure amie est partie en Australie, son patron vient de la virer, et son chat Voltaire vient de mourir.
Dans cette librairie fantastique, Nora explore les vies qui auraient pu être la sienne, et apprend à mettre de côté ses regrets.
The Midnight Library est un livre touchant et joliment écrit. Il n'y a pas d'énorme surprise dans le récit, on sent assez vite où l'auteur veut nous emmener, mais c'est efficace et élégant. On n'échappe à quelques leçons ou clichés que l'on croirait sorties d'un livre de développement personnel quelconque (“il ne faut pas essayer de comprendre la vie, il faut la vivre”), mais cela reste très minoritaire dans un texte réussi.
Je suis donc plutôt convaincu par les talents de romancier de Matt Haig, que je continuerai à suivre avec intérêt. J'ai d'ailleurs un autre de ses romans qui m'attend sur ma liseuse et qui pourrait bien être ma prochaine lecture.
I'm still processing this book but i think i really liked it
– feb 2021
– edit march 2022. –
after a long think, i've updated this to a generous 3 stars. there were a lot of things that resonated with me in this book (as i'm sure it would for any one with mh issues) and a magical library with a sweet older librarian looking after you sounds like a dream - but ultimately it hasn't really stuck with me. the premise is very interesting but it didn't seem to go anywhere with it and was quite formulaic/repetitive. the message, while important, was a bit heavy handed to say the least. i'm usually one who needs things spelled out a bit for me and even i found it overplayed. i did like seeing the different AUs and imagining mine is always a fun pass-time of mine so it was cool to see it done in a book in this way. discussion re and act of suicide is a large part of this book, and it may be triggering if that's something you've grappled with.
in the end, it was ‘just fine'
“The thing that looks the most ordinary might end up being the thing that leads you to victory.”
Unlike last few years, January was a really slow reading month for me despite starting with this good novel.
Midnight library is about should have, would have, could have, it's about regrets of the protagonist, how her decision impacted her life and things would have been different she would have chosen different paths and then after a point she actually gets to live different lives where she if chose a different path.
This book can give you hope if you are stuck with regrets and can give you a new perspective.
I accidentally started this book 70% of the way through (I must have accidentally tapped a chapter title from the index at the beginning and my kindle took me to it). I didn't even notice! I finished it, and thought “wow, that was so short”.
I dunno what that says about the book that I could skip most of it and not realise.
I think the ending was a bit too much “wow I'm fully cured now here I go to live happily ever after”. It didn't feel too realistic. The moral of the story is probably “the grass is always greener” and you don't realise what you have until you lose it. Yes, her brother and bestie are alive and well but is she really going to be fulfilled for the rest of her life knowing what she's missed out on?
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
What If You Had a Different Life?
We've all asked ourselves the question, “What if I had a different life?” Nora Seed gets to experience the answer to that question when she decides to end her life.
“The Midnight Library” is like the movie “It's a Wonderful Life” on steroids. An interesting mixture of quantum physics/parallel universes/philosophy combined to make this a story that is hard to put down.
And like Nora, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the result.
Highly recommended.
This story was vaguely familiar. A person who is shown all the different ways their life could have gone and then the lessons they learn. Sort of “Sliding Doors”-ish. But I liked it. I liked the message that there is no perfect life. We can't always be happy, otherwise it is meaningless and boring. I don't know that I would have picked this as the best book of the year, but I think I can understand in the dumpster fire that 2020 was this feel-good-this-too-shall-pass sort of book would be appealing to the masses.
But there were little things that kind of bugged me. Why didn't this male author write about Hugo instead of Nora? And why wasn't it until she had hands on mothering experience did she realize that life is worth living for. As if only as a mother could she find purpose in her life. That was a little “oh yes, a man wrote this” moment for me. But that's just me, I guess.
It's a 3.5 stars.
A bit lightweight like a pop song but with a meaningful message that provides enough nourishment to leave you feeling that you didn't waste your time reading it.
At times frustrating. At times beautiful. Both, I feel, are intentional.
A Christmas Carol for the modern age.
Oh I know I am a horrible horrible person for giving out two stars for this one. The thing is, it's a classic case of it's not you, it's me. Had I known the kind of book it was, I wouldn't even have started it. I kinda hate it by definition, it gives me the creeps slash anxiety.
For the ones who do not know what I'm talking about, basically, the main character, Nora Seed, decides to kill herself, and ends up in a library where each book means a ‘path' she would have taken differently and how it would have changed her life, so that she can get to the obvious conclusion one could tell you even without reading the book: you can't guess if this or that decision would really change your whole life, etc etc, just do the best you can, be grateful blah blah blah.
It is quite a revelation to discover that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact same place you escaped from. That the prison wasn't the place, but the perspective.
If I could marry a book, I'd marry this one. from all the fiction I've read centered on mental health, this one was very unique. Nora decides to end her life at the beginning of the book, and throughout she explores the different paths her life could have potentially taken given she made different decisions - funnily enough, she isn't happy as an Olympian, glaciologist, or rockstar. In the end, she realizes her original life is exactly where she needs to be, and her perspective on life is what was hindering her from being happy.
As someone that deals with my own mental health issues as many others do, this book surprisingly made me more optimistic about life - things CAN get better, and looking at life from a different angle might even be the catalyst to a positive mindset.
Guys, please read this book.
to read again, with a highlighter, and again and again and again. loved it :)
The perfect book at the perfect time. What a great book to read at the end of 2020 with so much hope and relevance. As you can see, I devoured it - I just started it yesterday.
It may not be the most helpful review or make sense to anyone but me, but this book feels like my favourite kind of book. Dreamlike and not always making sense. The Coma by Alex Garland, More than This by Patrick Ness both fall in to this category hugely. And from a totally different genre: Tony Soprano's dreams. In all of these cases I devour the content non-stop. Now I need to find the next one.
Consider me conflicted about this book. In a lot of ways, it was strong throughout, but I felt like I was back in my early creative writing workshops where there will be a story that seems to want to say something, then falls apart at the denouement.
I loved the premise and the set up. There was power in what happened and led Nora to the Midnight Library, where she's met by her childhood librarian who embraced her during one of the most stressful moments of her life. She's forced to look through her “Book of Regrets” and then navigate alternative realities throughout the library, with each book a different life an alternative her was leading, or thusly, alternative lives she could lead if she chose to.
Like I said, the set up for this is fantastic and pulled me in. Yet somehow, over the span of the mid-section of the book, it was starting to lose me. Still a somewhat breezy read that went fast, something about it felt... trite?
Seeing what Nora could have been and her self-actualizations was great, but as the book wore on there was an increasing sense of something missing from her story. There wasn't a lot the author was saying about her trauma and lived experience beyond “well what if she wasn't depressed and worked harder? She could be ANYTHING!”
Sci-fi/Fantasy on the subject of quantum physics might be my all time favorite book genre. This book was the British version of a Blake Crouch novel. Granted it had decidedly worse punctuation and the romance aspect was muted, but it was similar enough. Seeing as how my rating curve is practically set by Crouch, I obviously still very much enjoyed this book. It definitely should come with a trigger warning for suicide and mental illness in general. There were a lot of aspects in this book that I loved. The fact that each “slider” had their own library of sorts, the gradual change in mindset of Nora, her pauses (and judgement) after hearing the nicknames she's given in each book, her appreciation for the people in her life with smaller roles in her life at the end, the name of her job being string theory, the sass from her own mind's librarian, and the ties to philosophy throughout. Ultimately this book is about mental health and not letting regret dictate your future choices in life.
Loved this book and couldn't put it down. While there's a heaviness to it, there's hope. It's unique, fun, heartbreaking and warming. I relate so much to Nora, I easily could put myself in her shoes and experience her lives. My soul is a little lighter now :)
Okay THIS was worth the hype and SO good!! Look at me giving two five stars in a row. Who am I??
I couldn't put this book down and OFFERED to do errands for my husband happily so I could continue reading this audiobook.
This was so good! Loved that she was a philosophy grad, loved the way this story flowed, and loved how it was written. Pacing was great and once it hit its stride it was perfect. There are so many good nuggets and quotes here but I encourage everyone to read this book and get the wisdom themselves.
Just downloaded two more books from this author!
“The prison wasn't the place, but the perspective.”
This was a genuinely uplifting book. I loved the way the story unfolded. How we got to see Nora fall into despair and come out of it.
It talks about how regrets tie you down to people or moments you didn't get to live, decisions you wish you had made differently, friends you wish had kept in touch, the simple yet complex feeling of wanting to be a better version of yourself.
And consequently it also talks about how you can still do all of that. The impossible happens via living.
There was a lot of philosophy talk in this (Kant and Plato) - I know about them thanks to Chidi (The Good Place)
You know how some books come into your life at the best possible moment? They might not be the best written or win awards or show up on the high school required reading list, but nonetheless it ends up meaning the world to you. The Midnight Library is that book for me. I literally picked it up at the drugstore for a discounted price knowing nothing about it other than the brief description and awesome cover art, and it hit a chord so deep in me that I don't have the words to express how much this book meant to me.
We've all wondered what life would have been like had we made other choices. Would it be better, worse or just different. Nora in this book doesn't just wonder, she has the chance to actually live out some of her regrets and see if those alternate choices would have made her life more worth living, or just happier. The lesson she learns along the way is a poignant one and very worth hearing for those of us who think life would be better if...
Our society is so focused on how to achieve happiness, that we tend to get caught up in the pursuit of it and forget to truly live in the meantime and enjoy those happy moments in between, or accept the inevitable bumps we will hit along the way. And if you suffer from depression it makes you think those bumps are entirely your fault. Matt Haig definitely understands depression and deftly uses the difficult subject to write a surprisingly positive story.
I think this book is a thoughtful, poignant and worthwhile read. It's truly a treasure with a message that will hit you in the feels and make you re-evaluate how you look at your own life.