THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY
Matt Haig
This novel took me for an emotional ride. The lead character, Nora, is a thirty-five year old woman who, at the start of this novel, is in a pit of despair and depression, believing that she’s a failure, that she’s unaccomplished, that she’s missed out on chance after chance in her life. This is a novel about regrets, about how we hold on to them, how we envision these other lives as perfect bubbles that we might have had if we’d only chosen the right decision at certain crossroads in our lives.
This is the exact chance Nora receives once she arrives at the midnight library. She is allowed to try out all the lives she might have had and, ultimately, pick the one she wishes to live, the one she feels she should have had all along, to keep forever.
Beautifully written, this novel is especially for anyone feeling similarly to Nora, feeling as if you’ve missed out on who you could have been or what you could have accomplished. It’s for anyone who would love that sense of trying on all those other countless parallel yous that might have existed.
Marie Croke 