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A review by justjonsbooks
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
4.0
A lovely book with a cool idea and important messages. I really enjoyed the concept of the Midnight Library and the story grew on me, especially in the latter stages as I was both excited and anxious to see how things would turn out.
I used to see this book recommended all over Goodreads and I’m a sucker for multiverses, alternate timelines, all the time stuff, you name it. So it’s no wonder it caught my interest. Yes the overall theme surrounds depression and suicide and that’s not something I personally relate to, but I am at a stage in my life where I’m trying to figure out what I want to do next; and in a way start living a bit more. So I wondered if reading something like this, a little different to my usual reads, might inspire me or give me some sort of an epiphany in how I could improve my own outlook on the possibilities that lie ahead.
I’m going to be discussing stuff from notes I made while I was reading, so spoilers from here on out!
A thing that bugged me a bit throughout this book was the fact that Nora doesn’t have any memory in / of the lifetimes that she joins. She’s having to discover everything for the first time, which I understand is the whole point of the experience, but it ends up making a lot of the those experiences a bit repetitive while she stumbles along in conversations trying to figure out what it happening. Like a freaky Friday where she’s saying silly things which that version of her wouldn’t normally say, which also gave me anxiety that she would make a fool out of herself again. However this does get addressed later on…
Funnily enough when I was writing my notes for this book I suggested that it would be simpler if she was able to subconsciously recollect knowledge from the lifetime she is in. Like knowing how to play a song or talk about a certain subject through a déjà vu sort of thing. Well I was pleasantly surprised when (spoilers) this exact thing started to happen in the story; finding out that it only starts occurring once Nora begins to settle in her final chosen life. So that was a cool ‘Ah, I’m so smart’ moment for me.
On the sciency side of things, I thought it was pretty interesting that Nora could meet other people that are also trying out different lifetimes. I wasn’t entirely sure how or why that would happen. I know the Library is a construct to translate the layer of lifetimes into something that she can understand and navigate, a bit like in Interestellar. But I found it surprising that she could meet someone doing the same thing, how can she be connected to others? And meeting them more than once? What would the chances of that happening be? How many other people could be doing the same thing at the same time? I need to know more!
I also found it very interesting that Nora ended up experiencing hundreds of different lives and almost became trapped in the limbo of wanting something more every time. That’s pretty deep and I feel like it would completely change a persons personality, especially after those lives that she lived in for a long period of time. But in the end I don’t think we really see any major changes other than her outlook on life. I guess that would have been too complex to fit into the story.
Finally, she was told that once she decides on the perfect lifetime she would transition into it but that’s not what happened… It makes me wonder; was it truly because she felt like that life didn’t belong to her? Or was it in fact because everything about the Midnight Library and the alternate lifetimes was created in her mind in order to keep fighting in her final moments. Was any of it real? Did her soul actually pass through different lifetimes or were they all dreams of what could have been and what could still be? I guess that was purposefully left open to interpretation.
So in the end did have an epiphany while reading this book? Not really… I’m probably going to live my life the same way tomorrow as I did before reading this. But it does have some nice words that I think everyone should hear, and I hope that maybe for others those words will mean a lot and make a difference.
“She did look tired (…) It was a glamorous kind of tired. Like Billie Eilish’s cool aunt.”
I used to see this book recommended all over Goodreads and I’m a sucker for multiverses, alternate timelines, all the time stuff, you name it. So it’s no wonder it caught my interest. Yes the overall theme surrounds depression and suicide and that’s not something I personally relate to, but I am at a stage in my life where I’m trying to figure out what I want to do next; and in a way start living a bit more. So I wondered if reading something like this, a little different to my usual reads, might inspire me or give me some sort of an epiphany in how I could improve my own outlook on the possibilities that lie ahead.
I’m going to be discussing stuff from notes I made while I was reading, so spoilers from here on out!
A thing that bugged me a bit throughout this book was the fact that Nora doesn’t have any memory in / of the lifetimes that she joins. She’s having to discover everything for the first time, which I understand is the whole point of the experience, but it ends up making a lot of the those experiences a bit repetitive while she stumbles along in conversations trying to figure out what it happening. Like a freaky Friday where she’s saying silly things which that version of her wouldn’t normally say, which also gave me anxiety that she would make a fool out of herself again. However this does get addressed later on…
Funnily enough when I was writing my notes for this book I suggested that it would be simpler if she was able to subconsciously recollect knowledge from the lifetime she is in. Like knowing how to play a song or talk about a certain subject through a déjà vu sort of thing. Well I was pleasantly surprised when (spoilers) this exact thing started to happen in the story; finding out that it only starts occurring once Nora begins to settle in her final chosen life. So that was a cool ‘Ah, I’m so smart’ moment for me.
On the sciency side of things, I thought it was pretty interesting that Nora could meet other people that are also trying out different lifetimes. I wasn’t entirely sure how or why that would happen. I know the Library is a construct to translate the layer of lifetimes into something that she can understand and navigate, a bit like in Interestellar. But I found it surprising that she could meet someone doing the same thing, how can she be connected to others? And meeting them more than once? What would the chances of that happening be? How many other people could be doing the same thing at the same time? I need to know more!
I also found it very interesting that Nora ended up experiencing hundreds of different lives and almost became trapped in the limbo of wanting something more every time. That’s pretty deep and I feel like it would completely change a persons personality, especially after those lives that she lived in for a long period of time. But in the end I don’t think we really see any major changes other than her outlook on life. I guess that would have been too complex to fit into the story.
Finally, she was told that once she decides on the perfect lifetime she would transition into it but that’s not what happened… It makes me wonder; was it truly because she felt like that life didn’t belong to her? Or was it in fact because everything about the Midnight Library and the alternate lifetimes was created in her mind in order to keep fighting in her final moments. Was any of it real? Did her soul actually pass through different lifetimes or were they all dreams of what could have been and what could still be? I guess that was purposefully left open to interpretation.
So in the end did have an epiphany while reading this book? Not really… I’m probably going to live my life the same way tomorrow as I did before reading this. But it does have some nice words that I think everyone should hear, and I hope that maybe for others those words will mean a lot and make a difference.
“She did look tired (…) It was a glamorous kind of tired. Like Billie Eilish’s cool aunt.”