The Midnight Library: A GMA Book Club Pick
A Novel
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4.3 • 11.1K Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon
Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year
"A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."—The Washington Post
The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.
Don’t miss Matt Haig’s latest instant New York Times besteller, The Life Impossible, available now
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
It’s not every day that a novel makes us rethink life itself. Pushed to the limit, Nora has decided to end her life, but she isn’t prepared for what happens next: waking up in a library stacked floor to ceiling with books, each containing a different version of how her time on earth could have played out. With touching warmth and surprising whimsy, Matt Haig’s fantasy sweeps us up in Nora’s journey as she explores her potential paths, hoping to find the one that would have led to happiness and fulfillment. Of course, no life story comes without some struggle and sadness, and Haig’s novel constantly reminds us of that bittersweet, beautiful wisdom. Poignant, funny, and a little bit odd, The Midnight Library had us in tears—and we wouldn’t change a word.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Haig (How to Stop Time) draws on quantum wave theory in this charming if sometimes laborious account of the many possible lives of a depressed woman. Nora, in her mid-30s and living in the small English town of Bedford, suffers from "situational depression" though, as she wryly observes, "It's just that I keep on having new... situations." After she gets fired from her job and her cat dies, she attempts suicide, only to wake up in a book-lined liminal zone, where she is guided by a librarian: "Between life and death there is a library... Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived." There, Nora discovers what would have happened had she not abandoned her promising swimming career, called off her engagement, or left the rock band she started with her brother. Each time an alternate life disappoints or doesn't feel quite right, Nora exits, reappearing in the library to continue browsing for the perfect story. While the formula grows repetitive, the set changes provide novelty, as Haig whisks Nora from Australian beaches to a South American rock concert tour to an Arctic encounter with a polar bear. Haig's agreeable narrative voice and imagination will reward readers who take this book off the shelf.
Customer Reviews
Excellent read
Don’t overthink it or waste time researching it (as I did). Just read it and enjoy.
Surface level understanding of mental health with misogynistic messaging
At first, I was enjoying the book. But it very quickly completely lost me. What wasn’t lost on me was how many times Nora’s age, marital status, and lack of children came up every few pages. Definitely was pushing the idea that older women/women in general have no purpose if they aren’t wed and/or with children. This was proven by how suddenly Nora’s favorite life was the one where she WAS married and with children - I wish I could say I was surprised.
The book itself half way through was completely grasping at straws. All of a sudden, we find out that there are other people all over the world who have their own personal versions of a Midnight Library. We find out Nora can interact with them and that they are called “sliders.” This is mentioned once and never brought up again. A really useless plot point that did nothing to further the story at all.
The real icing on the cake was the end, which showed a complete lack of understanding into mental health recovery and building back familial relations. Nora wakes up, is taken to the hospital and behold! She is completely okay mentally, just picks up all her old hobbies, her and her brother are friends again just with the snap of a finger. I don’t think the author dug deep at all in the conversation surrounding mental health and particularly mental health among women (which I also am not surprised by because the author is not a woman).
What I see is a missed opportunity for a larger, more meaningful conversation about these topics (mental health and mental health among women).
I just needed a little more
The concept of this book is so unique and different and is probably what kept me engaged throughout. But I struggled to like Nora and root for her. Something was missing for me in how her character was developed.