The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library - 3*
Matt Haig

As I read The Midnight Library, I thought it was kind of like a movie I love, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” A key difference is that the main character in the book, Nora Seed, is not shown what life would have been like if she had never been born, but instead she actually lives lives that would have happened if she had made other decisions.

The book starts with Nora deciding she cannot stand to live anymore and attempting to kill herself. In the hospital, at midnight, she finds herself in a library where it is always midnight, and if time starts again, if it goes beyond midnight, she will either die, or not. The library is full of books, an infinite number of them, which are her other lives. The librarian, who is Mrs. Elm, Nora’s school librarian who helped Nora when she was in despair about the death of her father. Mrs. Elm tells Nora which books (lives) she can open (go to) and live the life she would have lived if she had decided differently about something she regrets in her real life, which they call her “root life.” She enters into a life where she chose a different career, one where she’s an Olympic swimmer, another where she’s a world-famous scientist, another where she is a wife and mother, and others. In the various lives, some people important to her have died, or people who died in her root life are alive. After reading several lives, although they were interesting and well-written, I grew tired of reading them and skipped around, skimming some pages and then reading the end.

Even though I love “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I know it’s schmaltzy. I get why many people don’t want to watch it. This book is schmaltzy in a similar way. It is clever, though. It comes to the conclusions you expect, where Nora realizes that life is worth living, even with regrets.