The Midnight Library By Matt Haig

Author : Matt Haig

Title : The Midnight Library

Published : 2020

Publisher : Canongate Books

Pages : 304

Genre : Contemporary Literature

 

     Between life and death, there is a library. When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger. Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?

     Matt Haig is an author who I have come back to time and time again. There is something so magical and uplifting in the stories he has chosen to tale. With that said he also brings to the for front a great many mental health issues. Something that is starting to become a lot more acceptable in our world. And it is through honest discussion and books such as Haig's that I feel this has become possible. He himself is very open about his own struggle, having also written nonfiction about what he has been through. But for me, he has found a way to talk about such issues and blend them with stores that most people can relate to in some way or another. They are at their hearts really good stories for anyone to wrap themselves up in.  So it is no great stretch that when The Midnight Library came out I was always going to end up reading it. 

     When it comes to our hero Nora she is me, you, and everyone else who has struggled with depression. Fighting that invisible war that is so hard to explain but lives in vivid technicolor inside our minds. It is hard to articulate what it feels like to have suicidal thoughts, this swirling vortex of negative that is constantly putting you down. But for me its something Haig manages to capture in a relatable way without it destroying the reader and leaving them without the wish to continue reading. Here within the pages of The midnight Library, this is only a very small piece of the puzzle. Nora's story is not about the dark little place you go to when all gets to be too much. This is a story of hope, that there is something else out there. That maybe we need to be shown there are an infinite amount of other paths we can take. Some a great like fireworks in the night sky others could be worse and lead to results we could never have predicted. And sometimes they are just fine, normal, and mundane but just because we are on one path does not mean we cannot change at any point in our lives. 

     The premise of this book is one that sets my mind in motions in a thousand different directions all at once. This thought that between life and death there is this library that contains every possibility for our lives all at once. Which might all seem a little far-fetched, but scientists have theorized about parallel dimension which play out every possible choice we could have ever made. And if not well to me it seems like a very interesting place to visit. It could give you answers to a lot of questions you have posted about how you came to be who you were. And this is pretty much how we experience our time with Nora. As she sees how each of her decisions lead her to appear in the library. It is something to witness just a few of the different lives she could have had. It allows him to muse on what it means to be alive. That despite what we may hope for there is no one size fits all and that happiness is not a constant. What hopefully goes into making a good one is that the good can out weight the bad. That in those moments spent doing something we love be that reading, seeing a movie or hang out with friends and family that those are what makes it all worth it. 

     And for me, this is where The Midnight Library finds its footings. That he shows us both sides but does not get dragged down into a spiral of woe. I am all too aware that when you get to the bottom it seems like there is little that can be done to bring you back but as Haig shows there is hope and I think that is what this book does it give a realistic view of other paths you can take. And that whilst that can be a brutal struggle for anyone going through it, life can surprise you and that those little moments of happiness can add up to something quiet beautiful 

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