Book review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Author: Matt Haig
Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Science Fiction
Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 29th September 2020
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Summary:
“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.”
My review:
“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?”
The Midnight Library is a moving and thought-provoking exploration of how the infinite possibilities and choices we make shape our lives. This beautifully written book takes readers on an incredible journey through the life of Nora Seed, a woman who finds herself at a crossroads and discovers a mysterious library where she can choose a vast number of books that reveal how her life may have turned out if she had made different choices.
I was particularly taken by the key theme revolving around regret and the what-ifs that we always find ourselves looking back on. After an extremely difficult period, Nora enters the Midnight Library and explores these parallel lives. Through this exploration she starts to question her identity, purpose and the true meaning of happiness. As usual waith Matt Haig’s books, the character development from start to finish is tremeandous and by the end it almost appears that Nora is a completely different person with a newfound vision of who she is.
The writing is expressive and engrossing as Matt Haig weaves in between the past, present and future with ease, capturing the emotional character of the different lives in each book. The pacing is excellent and I was constantly rushing to turn the page and follow Nora on her journey to find herself and what truly makes her happy. The other minor characters were also carefully chosen and represented different stages of her potential lives.
The Midnight Library is a treasure of a book. I sat holding this book and reflected on it a long time after reading the last page, contemplating on how the smallest decisions in our lives have the biggest impact without us consciously knowing it. With this book Matt Haig has created a timeless literary masterpeice and one that I will come back to and recommend to everyone around me for a long time. It is by far his greatest book to date and I am eager to read his next novel.
“Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations”