Book Review – The Midnight Library

Title: The Midnight Library
Author: Matt Haig
Publisher: Canongate
Published: 13th Aug 2020
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy

Rating: 5/5 stars

‘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. -Goodreads

Huge thanks to Canongate for sending me a e-ARC of this novel!

I love love Matt Haig’s writing a lot, and when I saw he had a new book released, I knew I needed to get to it as soon as possible, and I’m so glad I did. Haig has such a skill for writing emotions and writing, and his descriptions of mental health are always so relatable and accurate that I am always fully absorbed by his writing.

This book tells the story of Nora who finds herself in The Midnight Library, a library that offers you the chance to live all the lives you could’ve had if you had made different decisions in life. Nora finds herself in this library, and is given the chance to live all these lives she missed out on by making the decisions she did. This was a very interesting premise for a novel, all these regrets and choices that we carry through life that we think would’ve led to a better life, Nora gets to discover if this belief we all hold is true, and whether those regrets were even worth having and holding onto for so long.

This novel is a melancholy yet overall a very life affirming and poignant tale about life and being grateful for what we have, and that sometimes the grass just isn’t greener on the other side.

Haig’s description of the depression and anhedonia that Nora is feeling felt very accurate to me, and it took my breath away at times just how accurately Haig puts the feelings into words. I really appreciated that Nora wasn’t ‘cured’ in any way, she was simply shown a slightly different way of thinking about life, and shown the hope and light that can be found in little things in everyone’s life.

Overall I absolutely adored this novel, and it lived up to all the expectations I had for the novel. It is a breathtaking and moving and a book I highly recommend to everyone!

Buy the book from Waterstones here (affiliate link)