Book Review: The Midnight Library
"Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”
A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.
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 new 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."
~ From Goodreads ~
This one hit too close to my heart. We all have dreams that never get fulfilled. We all have dreamt about the "what ifs" of our lives. We all have wondered what would our life be like in an alternate universe.
The multiverse theory, the string theory and all those physics terms reminded me of "The Big Bang Theory". (Oh how I miss that show for completely different reasons).
I have had very similar visualizations of an alternate life in my dreams and nightmares. I don't think I can comment more on this book without giving out a spoiler. All I will say is that this is something we all wonder about, but only this author thought about writing it all down.
I have a confession to make. I have a few of my dreams/nightmares as the first chapters of books somewhere in one of my cloud spaces. But I never thought of clubbing them all into one book. Ingenious, I must say. I should have thought of this!
It was also perfect for the following reading prompts:
Popsugar Reading Challenge 2021: A book everyone seems to have read but you
Reading With Muffy: A book about book lovers
Book Bingo 2021: A book about books
This is the third review I've read about the book. Have bought it, but need to start reading it soon.
ReplyDeleteIt is a quick read. I hope you enjoy it too.
DeleteI read this book a couple of weeks ago and loved the book. As you said we all have that what ifs looming in the back of our mind that make this book relatable to every living being perhaps. After reading The Midnight Library, I started thinking about my life and found some answers. It made me happy, at peace. That's what this book did to me.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you felt the same way about this book. It was a good fantasy to live in for a bit.
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