From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

The Midnight Library

Matt Haig

Start date: April 1, 2021

Finish date: April 30, 2021

Discussion: 2021 Monthly Group Reads

Why we're reading this: April 2021 group read for "magical realism"…more
[close] April 2021 group read for "magical realism"

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2021 Monthly Group Reads

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What Members Thought

Jun 28, 2021 Sam rated it really liked it

This is the kind of book you stay up late to read. I wasn't totally convinced of Nora's end view of life but it make me feel some warm fuzzies. It's a good book if your brain likes to play the what-if game. ...more

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Feb 10, 2021 Leslie Jerkins added it

Shelves: 2021

No clue how to rate this.

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Feb 28, 2021 Gina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi-lite

Oh, I loved this book! Imagine having infinite possibilities in our lives, all shelved in our own personal midnight library- along with a book of regrets from our root lives. Take down a book, live that life.

I’ve seen this popular book everywhere but didn’t know anything about it. Which is my favorite way to start a book. I didn’t read this critically at all, I don’t want to hear about flaws. I just enjoyed it and escaped from reality. That is why we read fiction, right?

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Dec 18, 2020 Amy rated it it was amazing

Magic unfolds when you read a book at the right time and place in your life. 'The Midnight Library' was that book this year. While not to the extreme Nora faced, the pandemic brings to life questions about the future, our past decisions and what we need to be happy.

Nora's journey in a Sliding Doors type of scenario, she began to understand the choices she made and forgive herself for other people's decisions. Living in a world that's full of uncertainty, makes us contemplate our future. Are we Magic unfolds when you read a book at the right time and place in your life. 'The Midnight Library' was that book this year. While not to the extreme Nora faced, the pandemic brings to life questions about the future, our past decisions and what we need to be happy.

Nora's journey in a Sliding Doors type of scenario, she began to understand the choices she made and forgive herself for other people's decisions. Living in a world that's full of uncertainty, makes us contemplate our future. Are we happy, content with our decisions or is it time to shake up our stories?

From reading Haig's novel, I gave myself permission to move on and embrace life. It's OK to pursue happiness and make our lives meaningful despite difficult times. I rarely give 5-starred reviews but this story resonated with me and I stayed up until 3 am just to finish it. For anyone seeking a book that requires pulling away the curtain to see beyond the smoke and mirrors we hide behind, check out 'The Midnight Library.'

Extract:

“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.

It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.

But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

...more

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Jan 08, 2021 Anna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3.5 rounded up. I liked it a lot but somehow it fell a little flat. Interesting topic and way of writing about regret and depression. Also it felt like there were a lot of kind of gimmicky sound bites better suited to memes or self help books. It was good but not great.

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May 31, 2021 Kath rated it really liked it

Shelves: kathy

Really good and pretty light and very interesting. A great summer read!

It's about this woman who tries to commit suicide (stay with me) and ends up in a library where each book is a different version of her life. She gets to pick different books (rock star, glaciologist, pub owner etc) until she finds a life she wants to live. ...more

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Feb 14, 2021 Julie rated it really liked it

So good! I completely understand why this book has had everyone talking. Nora is profoundly unhappy with her life and takes steps to end it . . . but a little magic intervenes. Will it change everything? #ReadHarderChallenge2021 #23 #demystifiesmentalillness

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