Oh my. Midnight Library is an enchanting, poignant, life affirming novel which touches your heart and changes your perspective. There is not the words to properly articulate how wonderful it was.

I loved the concept of the library and the idea of having multiple lives makes an intriguing page turner. I felt that the pacing of this story was on point, and I never felt bored of any of the lives explored as each story had purpose and a lesson to offer both the character and the reader.

Through the rich narrative, Haig carefully explores regrets and the role they play in our life and mental health. I loved how the main character had the opportunity to reflect on the things that were making her unhappy and had a chance to see how things could be different if she changed them. Nora is a lovable but flawed character who I invested in within the first 5 pages and I often wanted to jump into the book myself to help her.

It felt like a fiction self-help book, shining a light on mental health, the impact of regrets on our self-worth, the meaning of happiness and what it truly means to live. He deals with depression and suicide with clarity and realism that never felt uncomfortable. Sometimes you read a book for entertainment, and sometimes you are lucky enough to have been entertained and educated – this book does just that.

Matt Haig should be available on prescription. Not only a beautiful imaginative story, but also medicine for the soul, a novel every human should read.

Thank you netgalley and canonbooks for giving me the opportunity to read this!

The Midnight Library is beautiful not only does it tell the story of the protagonist in a way that she enraptures your heart and soul, really making you feel. It makes you think about your own life and the choices you've made.. A riveting and thought provoking read that lingers with you long after you've turned the last page and closed the book.

“’Between life and death there is a library,’ she said. ‘And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. 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?’”

At the lowest point of her life, feeling as if there is no hope, Nora Seed attempts suicide. She wakes up in a library, at a point between life and death, and discovers that she has a chance to try infinite alternate lives.

First of all, the concept is wonderful and Matt Haig executes it brilliantly. I had long been a fan of the way he can explore quite dark ideas of mental health and suicide but balance them with a light, positive and hopeful tone. As the story develops, and Nora gets to try out these possible lives, we see how much potential one life can hold and how small decisions can affect not only her own life but the lives of those around her.
At its heart, The Midnight Library is a heart-warming story about embracing life and the dangers of holding on to regret.

Thank you to Netgalley and Canongate for granting me a copy of this book early!

Such a fantastic premise and it’s really nicely executed. It’s got hope and positivity that doesn’t come across as cliche or patronising. A genuinely lovely book that’s so easy to read and thoroughly gripping.

‘Nora shook her head. Wishing it would fall off. Her own head. Onto the floor. So she never had to have a conversation with a stranger ever again.’ #themidnightlibrary - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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This review is a little premature but hell I am spurting it all out now, and probably will again sooner to publishing date too.
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Matt’s brings together once again his unique blend of light and airy, alongside bitter sweet life poignancy with this story of Nora, a young woman pushed to the end of her emotional and mental breaking point, and is about to have a fairly eye opening outta body experience courtesy of, you guessed it, The Midnight Library.
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This isn’t just one for fans, or those that struggle with mental health themselves, it is a touching story for any contemporary fiction reader, one that is looking for a great story and perhaps a little cry too.
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And on a personal level, I just love Matts Writing style, he breaks mental health down without belittling it, you can see his own understanding laid bare with a frankness that’s doesn’t have to be uncomfortable but is just there in plain sight.
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This is such a beautiful book.

It's profound, thought-provoking and life-affirming - pretty much what Matt Haig does best.

The book is whimsical (with elements of magic realism and sci-fi) while never feeling trivial or flimsy. It deals with huge existential issues with great sensitivity and realism, combining philosophical concepts with everyday concerns.

Nora's search for peace, happiness and contentment is relatable and engaging. Her relationships are genuine and carefully explored; her connection to Mrs Elm was particularly powerful.

This is a book that will stay with me for a long time. As ever, Matt Haig has created a novel that is both entertaining and profoundly life-affirming.

First of all, thank you SO MUCH to NetGalley and canongate for my copy of this book. I am a huge huge fan of Matt’s and love his writing.
I had been very eagerly waiting for this one!

Gosh this was beautiful. I think Matt Haig could write about watching paint dry and I’d want it.

This book is so well thought out and so *human* and so empathetic. This book is a study in empathy, human emotion, desperation, loneliness, love, family, community, self loathing, self refection, self respect and mental health.

There is no filler in this book, nothing to skim-read or gloss over. It all matters and everything adds to the story and your experience. Nora is so likeable and relatable. We’ve all experienced poor mental health in varying degrees, even if it’s just feeling a bit ‘meh’, and so Nora is automatically someone we can read and understand and feel for.

Matt has such a personal experience with poor mental health and depression and a clear understanding of how it can make you feel (and it’s different for everyone). This is an honest book about how bad things can be, it doesn’t belittle depression of hopelessness or suicide, it respects it but handles it delicately in a way that isn’t overwhelming.

It is also a book about hope and how perception, good mental health and seeing others’ perspectives can make the world flip on its head and seen a different place.

I adore the general concept of the midnight library as a place and a plot. That we can contain multitudes in an infinite universe and all this can be within us and all be influenced by the smallest of choices and decisions, is amazing, overwhelming and somehow comforting with the way that Matt writes it.

I’m so grateful for this book and think everyone should read it. It is a book that takes you out of your own head whilst making you feel understood. It has so much heart, feeling and empathy and is written with an emotional intelligence that is unparalleled.

TW: please remember that this book does have an emphasis on suicide and poor mental health and although dealt with very respectfully and delicately, please keep your own MH in mind when reading this & take care.
Other TWs: cancer and death by cancer, adultery, pet death, loneliness, sibling death by suicide, death by car crash, alcoholism, addition, self harm.

** spoiler alert ** 3.5 stars 

Whilst it's definitely not a new idea that we lead multiple lives,Haig sets his story in a library,a guaranteed winner for anybody who loves books.
And he sets the moment to access those lives as the time between life and death.
It's done with warmth and humour,and has a very good moral of how we touch other people's lives without even realising it.
As Nora tries out various lives having attempted suicide,it seems she's never quite happy anywhere... 
Until she is,and then comes to realise what a difference her humdrum life has made to those around her.
It's definitely a heart warmer.

Like ‘How to Stop Time’ this is a book filled with hope and the reasons we live. It is written with Haig’s usual gentle genius at getting the reader through the dark. Brilliant.

One of the things I love about Matt Haig’s books is the way you can just slip right into them so easily. You just feel so comfortable reading them you just don’t want to put them down and this one is just the same. The moment you pick up this book you feel like you know Nora already. This book is an easy read but it is also incredibly clever and beautifully written. It is in parts funny, in parts sad, but 100% life affirming. I think most people have a little bit of Nora in them but which one is another thing...

Between life and death there is the Midnight Library a place where you get to look at your regrets and and pick the life that suits you best. Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library and with the help of an old friend starts to address everyone of her regrets to find her perfect life but before time runs out which life will she choose.

Firstly my thanks to Canongate Books and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Publication date 20th August 2020.

Nora Seed is at the lowest point in her life. Her parents are dead, her brother no longer speaks to her, her best friend has moved to Australia and she has just lost her job. She sits in her dingy flat and decides she has no reason to carry on living. She takes an overdose.

She ‘wakes up’ in a library. The librarian is her old school library teacher, Mrs Elm, who was always very kind to her. Mrs Elm explains this is the midnight library which exists between life and death; where every possible alternative life can be tried out to see if there is one Nora wishes to carry on living. Nora is handed her ‘book of regrets’ where she can read everything she has regretted in life. Perhaps she can choose a life where she can alter that decision she now regrets.

We are taken along with Nora to experience many of her alternate lives.

Will she find one she is happy with and decide to carry on living before time starts to move on and the library disappears forever?

Anyone who has read or knows of Matt Haig will know of his struggles with anxiety and depression. He makes no secret of the fact he almost took his own life. This is a man who knows life can get better and it is never too late to change your future.

There are many paths we can take in life and we must not focus on the grass being greener. We need to make the most of and enjoy the life we are living.

I’m going to give this book my 5 star rating. I have to admit that I almost gave up on it until around 10% in as the beginning is really very depressing. But please bear with it. Don’t stop reading. Finish it and it will be a book which stays with you for a very long time. I know the moral of the story will certainly stay with me and I will be recommending this book.

PS have tissues to hand if you tend to be emotional! I went through a few.

'"Between life and death there is a library," she said. "And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. 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?'"

Nora is in her mid-thirties and thoroughly unsatisfied with her life. When a neighbour finds her cat on the side of the road, so begins the last few hours in which Nora wants to live. After an attempt to take her own life, she wakes up in The Midnight Library, where she will have the chance to change her life.

I'm a huge Matt Haig fan and as soon as he announced the title for his new book, I couldn't wait to read it. The Midnight Library did not disappoint.

I devoured this in one sitting, completely engrossed in Nora's story. It was heartbreaking, real, relatable and so easy to read. The writing style is also perfect, Matt Haig is a brilliant storyteller.

The concept of being able to fix your regrets and see where those choices would have left you is so interesting. The subject of suicide is also handled incredibly delicately.

The Midnight Library is a wonderfully uplifting novel that everyone should read.

A huge thank you to Cannongate Books for the chance to read this title in exchange for an honest review. I'll definitely be pre-ordering a signed copy and singing it's praises for a while to come!

After attempting suicide, Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, a place in-between life and death. Here, every library book shows an alternative reality where she made different choices in life. She can undo her breakup, change her career, travel the world, repair her relationships with her family, become a successful musician/Olympian/parent. Nora travels through her parallel lives in search of fulfilment, in search of what it is that truly makes life worth living. It’s an interesting, yet terrifying premise. Would you want the chance to do things differently and see how your life would turn out?

The Midnight Library is another absolute treasure from Matt Haig, a brilliant, vital and poignant read- by far the best book I’ve read this year. For anyone feeling the weight of regret or feeling a bit restless and lost in life at the moment, I can’t recommend this enough.

What an interesting read - it's basically a fictionalised self-help book, and I don't think I've ever read anything like that before! I've heard great things about Matt Haig's writing and have been meaning to read something of his for a really long time. I follow him on Twitter and he's just the most wholesome person ever, very open about his own mental health struggles and extremely supportive of everyone else's journey.

I remember spotting The Midnight Library on a list of forthcoming books and I completely fell in love with the concept: a woman finding herself in a mysterious library between life and death where she is able to experience an infinite amount of parallel lives. I'm also a massive fan of Groundhog Day type stories like The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The First Time Lauren Pailing Died so this seemed absolutely perfect for me.

I really enjoyed Nora's journey through her parallel lives and the lessons she had to learn one way or another. My heart broke for her so many times! I know it's cheesy to say things like "what IS happiness?" but this book really makes you wonder. Is it money, love, family, fame, a good career; is it a mixture of these? Is it even possible to have it all or must I wholeheartedly commit to just one? If so, which one??

Minor existential crisis mid-read but I made it to the end! Would highly recommend :)
Thank you to NetGalley and Canongate for the ARC, longer review posted on Goodreads.

‘The Midnight Library’ by Matt Haig, lives up to and, dare I say, exceeds the incredible standard we’ve come to expect from his previous work. This book gives a person stuck between life and death the opportunity to relive lives that could have been by selecting a book from ‘The Midnight Library’.

This book explores a concept similar to that of ‘If Only’ by Melanie Murphy, but is given a unique twist. Matt Haig is a mental health advocate, and so effortlessly weaves the narrative of this into his fiction; more so in this book than perhaps any of his others.

This book not only takes you on the journey of Nora, the incredibly relatable protagonist, but it also twists your own mind to think what could have been if you had made different decisions, but in the best possible way.

With twists and turns, some serious character development, and the writing style of Matt Haig, I can’t help but recommend this book to absolutely any reader.