Score: 5/5 Bookmarks

Thank you to Viking Books for gifting me a review copy of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

I loved this book. Loved it. In fact, I can’t stop thinking about it. Nora Seed hates her life, and tries to end it, only to find herself in a strange library with an infinite amount of ever-moving books. Her school librarian is there, and tells her that there is a book for every version of her life that could ever exist, based on each decision she’s ever made.

And the best bit? She can open the books and step into those lives, to see what they would have been like, until she finds the life she wants the most. But with every life there are challenges to be considered and overcome.

It’s a moving story about finding your path, your happiness, and being your truest self. It’s all a matter of perspective really.

I loved Nora, and found myself hoping (so hard) that she would find her happy-ever-after, her dream life, the one where all the stars aligned just so. It was a beautifully written book and one I’m sure I’ll be thinking about for a long time to come. If you’d like to check it out, click the button below to grab a copy from an indie bookseller.

Potential trigger warnings for cheating, self-harm, drug overdose, parental death, and suicide.

Synopsis:

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.