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

Jan 02, 2021 Kris Springer rated it really liked it

This was a good first book of the year, recommended by author Clare Pooley in an email to our book club.

Protagonist Nora Seed doesn’t want to live anymore, so she takes an overdose of her antidepressants and hangs between life and death. While in this state, she encounters the Midnight Library—a place where Nora can jump into her alternate lives, and if she finds one to her liking, she can stay there.

The premise is interesting, and Nora’s experiences in her lives are captivating and illuminatin ...more

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Jan 30, 2021 Colleen Wilkinson rated it it was amazing

This book is brilliantly written. It offers a provocative survey in philosophy and inspiration. You won’t be the same after finishing it.

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Feb 10, 2021 Leslie Jerkins added it

Shelves: 2021

No clue how to rate this.

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May 24, 2024 Joanna rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi, bookclub-grasslands, 2024-read

I read this at the beginning of the year, but I guess never marked it down here. The concept here is good--a chance to dip into lives almost lived. What if I'd married that high school sweetheart? What if I was famous? What if I were a scientist? An accountant? An eclipse photographer? Here in the midnight library, you can slip into the alternate worlds and see what it feels like to be there.

I enjoyed the mechanics of how this worked and it was easy enough to go along for the ride.

Fundamentally, ...more

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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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Dec 30, 2021 Larissa rated it liked it

Lots of hype around this book so I wanted to read it. It was a fast and entertaining read and had you thinking about what your regrets in life are or could be in the future… I did think the writing was a bit juvenile at times, but the premise was unique and thought provoking and it was a quick read.

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