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A review by theyellowbrickreader
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
5.0
I was so deeply emotionally impacted by this book. A thinker (not a feeler) by nature, I was overwhelmed with the feelings I was left with. As evident by the book club discussion where I seemingly couldn’t speak on the book without getting choked up. The novel made me incredibly reflective on my own life and the meaning of this life in general. It was not introducing new concepts, but helping me revisit concepts, some familiar, some forgotten. Concepts of keeping things in perspective, carving your own path, and allowing yourself to be present in each moment rather than dwelling on the past or fretting about the future. These are illustrated brilliantly and in captivating form through protagonist’s Nora’s story, struggles and triumphs hand in hand as she soars through the multiverse via the midnight library.
“She’d have to stay there and tend to that wasteland.”
Some favorite quotes:
“‘Pressure makes us though. You start off as coal and the pressure makes you a diamond.’ She didn’t correct his knowledge of diamonds. She didn’t tell him that while coal and diamonds are both carbon, coal is too impure to be able, under whatever pressure, to become a diamond. According to science, you start off as coal and you end up as coal. Maybe that was the real life lesson.”
“‘Parallel lives?’
‘Not always parallel. Some are more...perpendicular.’”
“Maybe that’s what all lives were, though. Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty. Maybe that was the only meaning that mattered.”
“‘You’re overthinking this, Nora,’ said Ravi.
‘I have no other type of thinking available.’”
“The paradox of volcanoes was that they were symbols of destruction but also life. Once the lava slows and cools, it solidifies and then breaks down over time to become soil - rich, fertile soil. She wasn’t a black hole, she decided. She was a volcano. And like a volcano she couldn’t run away from herself. She’d have to stay there and tend to that wasteland.
She could plant a forest inside herself.”
“She’d have to stay there and tend to that wasteland.”
Some favorite quotes:
“‘Pressure makes us though. You start off as coal and the pressure makes you a diamond.’ She didn’t correct his knowledge of diamonds. She didn’t tell him that while coal and diamonds are both carbon, coal is too impure to be able, under whatever pressure, to become a diamond. According to science, you start off as coal and you end up as coal. Maybe that was the real life lesson.”
“‘Parallel lives?’
‘Not always parallel. Some are more...perpendicular.’”
“Maybe that’s what all lives were, though. Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty. Maybe that was the only meaning that mattered.”
“‘You’re overthinking this, Nora,’ said Ravi.
‘I have no other type of thinking available.’”
“The paradox of volcanoes was that they were symbols of destruction but also life. Once the lava slows and cools, it solidifies and then breaks down over time to become soil - rich, fertile soil. She wasn’t a black hole, she decided. She was a volcano. And like a volcano she couldn’t run away from herself. She’d have to stay there and tend to that wasteland.
She could plant a forest inside herself.”