4.5 Stars

Publisher: Canongate
Date of Publication: 13 August 2020
Number of Pages: tbc

[DISCLAIMER: This review is written in response to an advanced reader copy from my friends at Netgalley. Any quotes within this review may be incorrect in the final published text.]

“‘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?’”

Matt Haig first came into my life with Reasons to Stay Alive. I have more than one copy and I have gifted copies to people. More recently, I’ve been sending copies of his Truth Pixie series to my nieces.

The Midnight Library has similar themes but is for adult readers. There is something heartbreakingly familiar about this book. Connections occur on many levels and some are more difficult to process than others. Who hasn’t wanted to live a different life? Wanted the big overseas adventure? Wanted to go home again? Wished they had studied harder at high school? Wished they had known at 17 what might be important and interesting in the tale years of their 30s? Wished they hadn’t stayed in a job they didn’t like with people they hated? Wished the new coffee machine was black instead of red? Wished they had tried harder to stay within the dance world? Wished they had the courage to finish and submit the two novels written and never read? We all have a book of regrets but the lesson we must learn is that life continues.

“I don’t understand life,” sulked Nora. “You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”

In these days of unrest and hatred I think it is important we find things we can turn to for comfort and reassurance. These things don’t need to be books, it can be anything that connects you to yourself.

“So long as there are books on the shelves, you are never trapped. Every book is a potential escape.”

More, The Midnight Library reminds us that life is long. Life is a marathon not a sprint, as the saying goes. You can choose whether you want to be happy or if you want to spend your days feeling angry and unfulfilled. I know which I choose.

So let’s be kind to the people in our own existence. Let’s occasionally look up from the spon in which we are because, wherever we happen to be standing, the sky above goes on for ever”.

This book is all things wonderful. I believe that it takes someone who has gone through similar to really write about people struggling with MH issues. It's no secret that Matt Haig has suffered himself and this is reflected into the realism surrounding his characters and the situations he finds themselves in.
So, Nora has had enough of life. But as she tries to do something about it, she finds herself in a library. In front of her is the librarian from her school. All round her are books, and the librarian explains that they are the books of her own life, each telling the parallel story of what would have happened to her had she made a different decision. She now has the chance to taste any of these lives to see if things could have indeed been better. Assisted by her book of regrets as a guide. What would have happened if she had gone abroad with her friend, if she hadn't run out on her ex, if she'd said yes to that date... Nora gets to sample each life... But what is the ultimate lesson to be learned... well, that'd be telling.
Oh my, I really loved this book. It also came at exactly the right time for me as, well, we all know how weird the world is at the moment with many issues other than just Covid to get to grips with and I had found myself veering into quite a lot of introspection... too much maybe. So, not to put too fine a point on it, thank you Mr Haig...
The concept of the library, the librarian, the regrets, the paths never taken, just resonated with me so much. There's things I regret, obviously, things I wish I'd done differently. I think everyone can say the same and that is why this book is so powerful. And wonderful as as well as the power it holds, it's also pretty empowering to the reader. Well, it was for me. But, as well as that, it's a cracking story. Nora is a fascinating character - every facet of her - and I really did both sympathise and empathise with her as I got to know her.
All in all, a cracking read that I have no hesitation in recommending. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review. I needed this book,I didn't know I needed it until I had been reading for ten minutes,and then I devoured it in less than twenty four hours. I was attached,I could related to the main character Nora more than I would ever like to admit.

Nora is thrown into the midnight library,which exists between being alive and being dead. Here she meets her old school librarian Mrs Elm. The library contains an unlimited amount of books,each one is an alternative reality in which you could have lived based on which decision you chose at which time.

A story of hard truths and bitter sweetness. Breathtakingly honest and home hitting. I didn't know this is what I needed to hear until I read it. Matt Haig has gotten this story on point. This was the point of view I needed to hear,and I am sure that so many others out there also need to hear it.

A beautiful story of how we struggle with life and the decisions we make and how these can all come tumbling down on us, making us feel hopeless and beyond caring how life ends up.
But what if we got a chance to go back, and really check these decisions and see the thread behind all these events in our lives?
Nora is struggling and has taken that option to give up, but she has been given a chance and it is here we meet the midnight library.
And what an amazing library it is.
A story of life, believing in who we are not what others think we are or want us to be.
A wonderful uplifting, beautiful story.

This book came precisely when I needed it. I was confronted, inspired, and moved. This may be his best work yet.

Matt Haig is back with a vengeance. I'm a big fan of all of his books, and this one certainly lived up to my (unfairly high) expectations.

When Nora Seed decides that her life is not worth living any more, each of the books in the Midnight Library gives her a chance to experience a different version of her life, altered by decisions and circumstance. She is able to examine her regrets, and see how life would have panned out had events unfolded in a different way.

This is exactly the sort of premise for a book which, if executed badly, could easily become contrived and clunky, but not in Haig's masterful hands. He is so good at capturing the tiny, day-to-day truths which make us human, and putting them down on paper in a way which is both raw and dignified at the same time. I'm sure that many of us have questioned what life might have been like had we made a different decision about an ex-partner or a job opportunity, and yet again, Haig has managed to write a book which doubles up as both entertaining novel and life coach.

Trigger warnings: suicide and suicidal thoughts

In many ways this is a very straightforward novel built around a simple idea. A young woman, Nora Seed, in the grip of depression, who is weighed down by a sense that all the failures in her life, all the regrets and bad choices, have brought her to the point where she has nothing left to live for. She is certain that there is no-one remaining in her life that would miss her if she were gone and so she decides to end it all – she decides to commit suicide. A simple concept perhaps, but one that encourages us, the readers, to think more deeply about the nature of our own lives. To think about what it is in life that brings us happiness and purpose, that keeps us believing that life is worth living.

This early section of the book is an unrelentingly frank presentation of Nora’s life. Her sense that she was a disappointment to her late father, her estrangement from her brother, the loss of her job and even the death of her pet cat, the only living thing that was in any way dependent upon her. She has reached the point where she feels that every connection between her and the world around her has been severed. However, it is when she has taken what she is hoping will be a fatal overdose of pills, and she has slipped into unconsciousness, that the novel takes a fantastical turn.

Nora wakes to find herself in a strange building of infinite size filled with bookcases holding an infinite number of books. This is the Midnight Library and each of the books represents a life that Nora might have led and indeed might now lead instead of her old, unhappy, one. It soon becomes clear that she is being offered the chance to experience her life as it would have been had she made different choices that would have ensured that she never experiences the regret that she thinks has blighted her life. To help her in this exploration of her alternative lives is a librarian who takes the form of Mrs Elm, the school librarian of her childhood, and who she returns to when the alternative life she has chosen to explore disappoints her.

I rather think that many of us have played this game at some time. Many of us have thought about, fantasised about how differently our lives would have played out had we made a different decision here or taken a different path there in some parallel universe of the kind implied by quantum mechanics. For Nora, and perhaps for all of us, life is a collection of regrets, but she is given the chance to find a life that, for her, is worth living. She experiences many lives in which she fulfils her potential as an Olympic athlete, a scientist and even a rock star, and some where she avoids other less significant regrets. But time and time again she finds herself back in the Midnight Library facing the possibility that her suicide will prove to be successful if she does not find that one alternative life she is destined for. However, if she does find it then for her perhaps what Sartre wrote will prove to be true: that “Hope begins on the other side of despair.”

If this is a story about regret and its corrosive effects on how we live our lives, then it is also a warm hearted and optimistic story; a life-affirming fable that deals with difficult matters of mental health, and of what it means to be alive in these times, in a sensitive, poignant, and profoundly moving way. The author, who is new to me, has produced a beautifully and sensitively written piece of work that deals with a complex subject matter with great clarity.

I would like to express my thanks to Net Galley and Canongate for making a free download of this book available to me.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is, as always, a brilliant read. The reader is immediately pulled into an unputdownable story. A brilliant take on a very difficult subject. I will never forget the library and what happened in it. Heartwarming and up-lifting. . A pleasure to read,

The Midnight Library is a treasure trove of philosophical delights.
The sorry circumstances Nora Seed finds her life to be in are not only relatable but all to familiar to many.
Matt Haig presents the theory of multiple lives and the endless possibilities of these lives with such imagination. I simply could not put it down.
Left me feeling invigorated and intrigued as to what other possible lives I could be living.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this early copy. One to treasure and quote from for a long time to come.

A really great read, not only are you going on the journey through life with the character but it makes you really think about your life too. Makes you consider the paths you are taking and if you will end up regretting not doing something in the future.

A really lovely, eye opening read!

I love Matt Haig's writing, which is honest and at times heartbreaking. The Midnight Library is no exception. As always with Matt, the concept is strong. Imagine you could visit the Midnight Library (which I read as limbo) and do things in your life differently? I really enjoyed this book and felt it would also be a great read for a YA audience.

This book was so well written, it stirs something inside you. Impossible to put down as the magical story pulls you in. I’ve not read such a beautiful book in a while.

Matt Haig's latest novel is a thoughtful story about wanting to kill yourself; live choices; regrets; and reasons to live. The idea is a simple one. Nora Seed is trying to kill herself but is not dead yet. Instead she find herself in a place in between life and death - The Midnight Library. In this library are books full of alternative versions of her life. By opening the book she experiences that version of her life. She can see if those other versions of her life would have made her happier, more content with life, or not. If she does she can stay in that version of her life. If not, she returns to the library to start again.

It is no surprise given that Haig has gone through the experience of trying to end his life that this book is smart, compassionate, insightful and funny. As a result it is neither trite or preachy. What it is, is a lovely book about wanting to live.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC to read and review

It’s been a long time since I finished a book and immediately wanted to go back to the beginning so I could start again. This was my first Matt Haig book, and it did not disappoint. It perfectly encapsulates the feeling of hopelessness that can come from feeling sad or low all. of. the. time., and the journey that this sadness can take you on.

The premise of this book intrigued me but in the end it felt like a series of ideas that had been shoehorned into a novel format. Some good ideas to explore but ultimately I felt it became a little trite and insubstantial.

Do you ever wish you could undo your previous regrets? That’s the premise of Matt Haig’s latest novel, The Midnight Library.
Nora feels empty, lost and alone. Living in the town where she grew up with all friends and family moved away, gone or not speaking to, nothing seems worth it. Soon she decides the easiest thing would be if she didn’t live but when she commits the deed, she gets transported to a mysterious library-like purgatory where she can try out lives like outfits in a clothes shop.
The premise harks back to A Christmas Carol with its viewing of different lives however Haig’s writing keeps the tone effervescent and breezy. That’s not to say that there aren’t emotional pulls to the book - the prevalent theme of exploring depression and anxiety that run through Haig’s work are present here.
There are certain aspects of the book where you’re simply waiting for Nora to return to the library having learned a lesson however these are few and far between - with enough wit and personality in the writing to see you through.
Given the current situation, The Midnight Library provides a fantastic balm and positive message without lingering too long on getting you down. Matt Haig has a truly deft touch of balancing tonality throughout his books and ensuring the messages of positivity and love ooze through every chapter.

Haig’s done it again. Achieving the perfect balance of making you drift off into a literary dream whilst making you have a good think. And just like his previous corkers of books, I’d fully recommend the Midnight Library to all fellow readers.

‘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 if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’

Nora Seed gets the chance as we follow her journey into the elusive Midnight Library. Coming from a pretty miserable existence, the future looks filled with possibilities. But what is it that makes life a good one? And what makes us truly content?

If you’re partial to highlighting your books, this one will look like a GCSE textbook by the end as it’s filled with gorgeous ‘Haigisms’, like this little nugget: “...it is not the lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.”

This is one of those rare books that leaves you feeling like you’ve just taken in a huge breath of air and you’re ready to accomplish anything! And guess what? You are!

Matt Haig’s novels always feel like a gift to me - a second chance - perspective-shifting stories where he bestows his wisdom on us all ❤️

The Midnight Library is Nora’s version of Limbo, a unique place existing somewhere between life and death. On the shelves of her library are the many lives she could have lived, lives full of surprising, scary and character-building opportunities. All she has to do is open a book to try a new life on for size. Once she closes a book, she can never return. Would she be happier in another life?

Matt Haig has a talent of ironing out even the most complex issues with his words. Every week I see more and more of my friends share his posts and for good reason, he writes in a way that makes you physically shout “Yes! That!” at your screen. Each novel I’ve read takes that a step further, you can feel the story opening your mind in ways you’d have otherwise never discovered. This one is no different. It’s like life therapy. In one chapter, in particular, Nora reflects on what she’s learned through living multiple lives. It’s just beautiful. Haig is clearly light-years ahead of me on his journey to self discovery. I’m so glad he shares this wisdom.

If you ever wonder “what if?” then this book’s definitely one to add to your wish list.

Favourite quote: “We don’t have to play every game to know what winning feels like.”

I certainly feel like my eyes and heart are more open after reading it. The Midnight Library is out in August 🎉

The midnight library
Nora Seed is depressed and done with life. But she is about to encounter the midnight library where you get to try out all the lives you could have chosen by swapping the book of regrets for books containing infinite possibilities.
Should Nora go back to the swimming she enjoyed but gave up, with the promise of an Olympic career? Should she continue as the singer in her long-ago band? Or move to Australia with her friend Issy?
This sweet novel sounds downbeat but it’s actually uplifting and inspiring.
It feels a little like a fable - we’re learning lessons about how to live our lives, and cope with the sorrows, while reading Nora’s story.
But it’s too charming to feel didactic and you’re soon rooting for Nora in her quest for the perfect life.
Thoroughly recommended.

i read this lovely book in one sitting this week, and I loved it. It was like a sledgehammer to the frontal cortex, if the sledgehammer was made of fresh air, good food, and a stretch. I will be recommending this book widely when it arrives into my shop - I can't wait to see what my customers think of it.