Book 1 The Midnight Library

 

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig fulfills the category “Book Featuring a Parallel Reality” for the PopSugar 2022 Reading Challenge. Forgive me for starting the “Advanced” section of the challenge, but this title fits the category perfectly!

The Midnight Library is a magical place where souls can visit just before death. Each person’s “library” can take any shape that fits their own life—a library, a restaurant, a craft store. Inside this structure, the person can test other life choices and live an alternate life. If they find a good one, they can stay.

A book about libraries and string theory and getting yourself together? Sign me up!

Nora Seed’s life is not going great. Some of her choices have led her down a path where she thinks her only choice is suicide. Instead of dying, she ends up in the Midnight Library with her childhood librarian as a guide. Each book holds the life she would have led if she’d only chosen differently. There are millions of books. Nora tries out simple changes at first, then radical onese, each scenario teaching her a lesson about life and herself.

I won’t spoil it, but the author did a little “shark-jumping” with a few of the parallel lives. We all believe within us is a potential to do anything, be anything, but really, we are limited by physical, mental, and emotional limits in our personality and being.

Nora did not seem to have those limits. She was a rock star, an Olympic swimmer, a glaciologist, a mother, a vineyard owner, and a philosophy professor at Cambridge. Most of those lives are huge. I found it hard to believe that one woman had the potential for all those careers inside her.

Yes, I know we are defined by the choices we make. Most of us could have had different careers, careers, partners, families if we’d only chosen X instead of Y. We hope we can achieve all the things. But to be an Olympian and a rocks star and a professor—maybe not. This is probably my only criticism of the story.

The story was fantastical and wonderful in the genuine sense of those words. It was full of fantasy and wonder. I laughed and cried and rooted for Nora. I wanted her to live the life she was meant to. Her struggle was real, and I had such hope for her. And what more can you ask for in a book than a main character you love and empathize with? (Plus, the ending made me so happy.)

I give The Midnight Library by Matt Haig Five Guiding Librarians to help us find our true selves.