The Midnight Library
2020
- fiction
- fantasy
- contemporary
- magical realism
- science fiction
- mental health
- adult
- novels
- nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-fiction=2020-10-18
- fiction, science fiction, general
The story
Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. 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?” A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time. 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.
What it’s like
Soft, dreamlike and quietly luminous, with the feel of a dim, endless library at night: hushed reading-room stillness, warm lamplight on book spines, and a sense of infinite corridors receding into pale, hazy distance. The prose is clear and conversational, lightly lyrical, with short reflective passages that pause to consider small domestic details, like tea, rain on a window, or the ache of an ordinary Tuesday. Its vibe is wistful and tender, a gentle melancholy that gradually softens into hope, well suited to a rainy afternoon, a sleepless night, or a slow, unhurried read with a mug of something warm. The pacing is brisk within each alternate life, then drifts back to reflective stillness as the protagonist weighs what matters. Her arc moves from numb despair toward a cautious, earned sense of worth. Emotionally the register is sad but consoling, with frank talk of depression and suicidal thoughts handled with care rather than gore. Intensity is low: no graphic violence, little sexual content, and no sustained fear, though the subject of despair runs through it. It suits readers who want reflective, emotionally warm fiction with a speculative edge and a hopeful resolution.
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