Trigger Warning: This review discusses themes of mental health struggles as explored in the book. Some readers may find these topics distressing. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these subjects.
Title: The Midnight Library
Author: Matt Haig
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy
Year of Publication: 2020
Date of Publication: September 29, 2020
Pages: 304
ISBN-10: 0525559477
ISBN-13: 978-0525559474
Summary of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
The Midnight Library follows a woman named Nora Seed. Nora feels hopeless and is overwhelmed by regrets and on the brink of suicide. She discovers a magical library that exists between life and death. In this library each book represents a different version of Nora’s life had she made other choices.
At the exact hour when Nora was preparing to die i.e. at midnight, she finds herself in the library. The library has loads of books however there are no titles or authors names on the books, just different shades and sizes for each book. While walking around this strange library, she recognizes a woman who introduces herself as the Librarian. The woman appears in the form of Nora’s former school librarian, Mrs. Elm, but Nora knows it is not exactly her from her disposition. When Nora was much younger, she used to play chess and the day her father had died, Mrs. Elm had gently broken the news to her in the library. Her father had died of a heart attack and that moment of finding out had significantly changed the trajectory of her life.
At first, Nora is hesitant to explore the library, but Mrs. Elm introduces her to the Book of Regrets. It reveals the choices she didn’t make, the paths she didn’t take, and the moments she wishes she could change.
Nora gets to see what her life would have become if she was for example a glaciologist, an Olympic swimmer, a rock star, and more. Each experience shows Nora what her desires, fears, and the consequences of her choices are. As Nora, lives through her different lives, she begins to understand the meaning of happiness, fulfillment, and purpose. The story highlights her search for a life worth living.
“Between life and death, there is a library. She said, 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 different if you had made other choices. Would you have done anything different if you had the chance to undo your regrets.”— Mrs. Elm
Main Plot & Characters
- Nora Seed – The protagonist. An unhappy woman who, after attempting suicide, finds herself in the Midnight Library, a place between life and death.
- Mrs. Elm – She was Nora’s school librarian and acts as her guide through the different possible lives.
- Joe Seed – Nora’s older brother. They were once close but drifted apart over time.
- Ash – Nora’s kind-hearted neighbor. Ash is a surgeon. In some lives, he becomes more important to her.
- Dan – Nora’s ex-fiancé. They had planned to open a pub together.
- Izzy – Nora’s best friend who moved to Australia.
- Dylan – Nora’s former bandmate in The Labyrinths.
- Ravi – Another former bandmate who still hopes to succeed in music.
- Leo – A young boy Nora tutors in some of her lives.
- Voltaire – Nora’s cat, who dies early in the book.
Writing Style
Haig’s writing writes the story in way that it is very easy to read and follow. The author uses a conversational tone that makes the book relatable and encourages readers to reflect on their own lives.
Memorable Quotes
- “Between life and death there is a library.”— Mrs. Elm
- “You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”
- “Never underestimate the big importance of small things.”— Mrs. Elm
- “It is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It is the regret itself. It is the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.”
- “The only way to learn is to live.”— Mrs. Elm
- “Sometimes just to say your own truth out loud is enough to find others like you.”
- “Doing one thing differently is often the same as doing everything differently. Actions can’t be reversed within a lifetime however much we try.”— Mrs. Elm
- “A person was like a city. You couldn’t let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole. There may be bits you don’t like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs but the good stuff makes it worthwhile.”— Nora’s reflections
- “She wondered how many Dan’s there were in the world, dreaming of things they would hate if they actually got them and how many were pushing people into their delusional idea of happiness.”— Nora’s reflections
- “Sometimes regrets are just…’she searched for the appropriate term and found it., ‘A load of bullshit.'”— Mrs. Elm
- “I AM ALIVE.”— Nora
- “It is quite a revelation to discover that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact place you escaped from. That the prison wasn’t the place, but the perspective.”— Nora’s reflections
“A Thing I Have Learned (Written By A Nobody Who Has Been Everybody)
It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we’d worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga. It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do, and the people we didn’t marry, and the children we didn’t have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret and keep regretting ad infinitum until our time runs out. But is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It is the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy….Those lives are happening it is true but you are happening as well and that is the happening we have to focus on….Let’s be kind to the people in our own existence….”
Final Thoughts on The Midnight Library
The Midnight Library sparks important conversations about mental health, purpose, and personal fulfillment. The book will resonate with those seeking clarity and meaning. If you are someone who has regrets about certain aspects or events that may or may not have happened in your life, then this book is actually a great read.
Other books that have explored different lifetimes or alternative lives include The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub.
