Book Review Club - April 2022

Nora Seed was having a bad day.  She gets home from work and a friend stops by and tells her that her cat is dead in the street, presumably having been hit by a car.  She goes to work the next day to have her boss inform her that he can no longer afford to pay her and he was going to have to let her go.  She leaves work and runs into an old friend who yells at her and tells her she ruined his life when she quit the band they were in.  She gets home and decides to kill herself, after all, who would care if she died?  Her best friend had moved away.  She'd called off her wedding two days before it was supposed to happen and she wasn't on good terms with her brother.  She'd had lots of opportunities to make something of her life - she was a great swimmer; she was a gifted singer / songwriter and had even considered philosophy and glaciology but she never followed through on things.

 

She left her brother a voicemail message telling him she loved him and wrote a letter and decided to die.

 

It was midnight and she "woke up" in a library.  It was being tended by the librarian from school, which Nora found odd.  But after speaking with Mrs. Elm (the librarian), she learned that she was at the midnight library.  Mrs. Elm explained that the books on the shelves were her life.  The biggest and heaviest book was her book of regrets.  At the midnight library, Nora would have the opportunity to go back and live any of the versions of her life that she chose to in order to see which one truly suited her.  She was advised to choose wisely because there were no guarantees - she could die in any of the other versions of her life and things would end immediately.

Any life she chose would take her to the exact date and time she arrived at the midnight library but her history would have changed, based on the choice she made.  For example, in one instance she returned to a life where she hadn't stopped swimming and changing that decision had changed everything that happened after that.  The problem was, she entered these alternate lives without the knowledge of the history that came with it so that she didn't know where she was, where she lived or who the people around her were.  On the plus side, once she realized she didn't want that life, she would return to the midnight library and get to experience another life.

I think we all have times in our lives that we wish we'd done differently and in The Midnight Library, Matt Haig gives a glimpse of how certain decisions can totally alter your life - and not always for the better.  One thing I liked about the writing is that the chapters were short - well most of them anyway.  It reminded me of how James Patterson writes in that the chapters are short so you're always willing to read just one more chapter, but there's such a big hook you kind of HAVE to read the next chapter. :)  Although, it did seem to lag in the middle and I felt that things were dragging out too much.  Then it picked up again and I couldn't put it down.

Overall it was an enjoyable read that was thought provoking and entertaining.  I would recommend it!

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@Barrie Summy