After years and years of feeling like a complete failure, Nora Seed decides to kill herself. Only, things don’t go as planned. Nora finds herself at a stopping point between life and death, known to her as The Midnight Library. Nora’s host is her childhood school librarian and she explains that Nora is being given one last chance to undo her regrets and see where she would have ended up if she had made different choices throughout her life. The library holds infinite parallel lives and Nora is free to drop into any of them and can stay if she finds true happiness, but not without consequence.

It’s clear from his insightful writing that Haig has had his own battles with mental health and holds a deep understanding of depression, philosophy and life. Although the subject matter seems dark, Haig manages to humor and comfort the reader. Books rarely make me cry but I did shed a few (happy) tears at the end of this one. With the world feeling like it’s going to hell in a handbasket lately, this book was like a breath of fresh air. This is a truly meaningful story about the beauty of everyday life and living in the present.

TW: suicide, depression, death, self-harm