The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

           

Reviewed by Christy

Imagine a library between life and death. In this library, there are endless books with endless possibilities of different lives one can lead. All you have to do is flip through the big Book of Regrets and maybe tweak something here or there. The smallest change can have huge ramifications.

            This is where Nora Seed finds herself after a suicide attempt. Talking to a manifestation of her childhood librarian about all the things that went wrong in her life. A failed Olympic swimmer and a failed musician, Nora has lost her music shop job (and her cat) when she decides to end it. In the library, Nora tries out different lives, and the moment she feels the slightest tinge of disappointment she is whisked back to the stacks. She tries being a gold medalist, a rock star, a veterinarian, a glaciologist, and a vineyard owner just to name a few. None of these parallel lives feels quite right, and Nora is beginning to think that maybe it’s just her.

            I thought this was a very interesting set up so I checked out the audio book on READS. It was okay-ish. I didn’t hate it but it also didn’t really do a lot for me. I’m a very sappy person, and the premise is ripe for all the sap! But I honestly found myself not caring very much. Nora feels almost like a blank slate, and while I didn’t dislike her, I also was not invested in her journey. It’s a Wonderful Life, for example, takes the time to world build the little town of Bedford Falls. We get to know the townspeople and of course George Bailey because if we didn’t, would we care what happens to them in Pottersville? Probably not. And that world and character building just doesn’t happen here. (Though Nora’s hometown is called Bedford.)

 There is one life where she seems truly happy (or at least has the potential to be. Being dropped into a happy life with no memories of the time leading up to it hampers some of the joy). We as readers have not really seen her interact much with the person with whom she’s leading this particular life. We are told of previous interactions but that’s about it, and that just doesn’t cut it. There are some sweet moments in this section though, and I did get the occasional warm fuzzy (like I said, sap!) but that was not enough to overcome my indifference. I really wanted to like this more but for me, it was unremarkable.