The Midnight Library (The Midnight World #1) by Matt Haig

"On the day she decides to die, Nora Seed finds hereslf in The Midnight Library. A place where she's given the chance to undo all of her regrets, to live a thousand lives, to be whatever she wants to be. She'll soon find though that nothing is ever that simple, that all of her lives hold some sort of struggle and time might very well run out before she can find the life she feels is worth living."

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pros: It was definitely a unique idea/It had a good message, that life will never be perfect, nor should it be, without pain you wouldn’t know joy.

Cons: The pacing left something to be desired/Nora was a bit indecisive and frustrating/Noras' cluelessness when first "starting" a new life got rather repetitive and there always seemed to be some disaster waiting for her.

Full Review:

Nora Seed feels like a failure. She feels like her life has been one bad decision after another, never committing to anything, constantly letting her friends and family down. And so, she decides that it's time to end it. She decides that it's time to die.

Instead of finding whatever it is that awaits us in the afterlife though, she finds herself in the halls of a vast, un-ending library, covered floor to ceiling in shelves of green books. And the librarian of her primary school, Mrs. Elm, is there to be her guide.

She's been brought to the Midnight Library, where every book is a chance to fix a past mistake. She can live a new life, make different choices that in her "root" life she thinks caused all her problems and see if she can truly find happiness.

There are stipulations of course. You cannot re-enter a life you've already "tried" and if she dies in one life, she dies in them all and the clock is fast ticking since she is currently in between life and death and has no idea how long her time in the Library will last.

This was definitely a dark but interesting premise. It had a good message, as do all of Haig's work. Without pain and suffering, you cannot know joy. That every decision you make has a ripple effect that could harm or help others. That you never quite know how your life is going to turn out, so instead of being afraid of living, you have to take a breath and do just that.

Live.

This wasn't the end all be all of books that I thought it was going to be but it had its moments and I'm glad I read it. I'm still undecided about The Midnight Train but, never say never.

Comments

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