An Ivy Brownstone Review of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

TLDR

4 out of 5 stars. Amidst a global pandemic and mental health crisis, The Midnight Library provides a much-needed perspective: we are full of infinite possibilities, and we have the power to change the trajectory of our life.

Where to Read

At home, in bed.

Favorite Quote

“Maybe that’s what all lives were, though. Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty.”

Summary

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig takes fire at the collection of regrets and ‘What ifs’ that inevitably pile up in the corners of our minds. Shortly after its release in 2020 the novel was named a ‘New York Times Bestseller’ and was featured on Good Morning America, indicative of a world trying to address the mental health crisis that surfaced during the global pandemic.

Matt Haig’s story starts at the end - Nora Seed, a woman whose life is riddled with tragedy and regret - decides to take her own life, and so begins her journey through the Midnight Library. The library contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality of Nora Seed - another reality that could’ve been if she undid a breakup, realized her dreams, or followed a different career path. Faced with the possibility of exchanging her life for a new one, Nora travels through the Midnight Library to decide what it is that makes a life worth living.

Review

The novel reads like a bedtime story - quite short, simple concept, great lesson. Haig handles the topic of mental health with care and makes each page extremely relatable regardless of where one falls on the mental health spectrum.

Haig’s description of depression through the lens of Nora is handled perfectly; he takes us through her routine making it clear with mundane descriptors that everything from answering her front door to showing up for work, is difficult. Instead of dramatizing depression for the sake of an entertaining opener, he instead hooks the reader with a startling, yet average first sentence: “Twenty-seven hours before she decided to die, Nora Seed sat on her dilapidated sofa scrolling through other people’s happy lives, waiting for something to happen.”

Post-death Haig introduces the reader to the Midnight Library and Nora’s ‘Book of Regrets.’ The book includes relatable regrets like not exercising or not saying ‘I love you’ and everything in between. The narrative immediately sparked a cycle of what-if thinking; I began to ponder how my life could, should, would be different. And just as I started to spiral, so did Nora. In this way, Haig cleverly connected me to the main character; I was invested in her journey from this point forward.

As the novel continued, I grew aggravated with how long it was taking Nora to realize that the life she left in the beginning of the book was the only life worth living. Her journey began to feel repetitive and predictable. But I soon realized that the repetitive and predictable nature of the book was actually quite clever. In expressing frustration with the main character’s choices, I found myself reflecting on my own life with immense gratitude - suddenly understanding how silly I must look any time I wish to change the past.

Amidst a global pandemic and mental health crisis, The Midnight Library provides a much-needed perspective: we are full of infinite possibilities, and we have the power to change the trajectory of our life.