Sifting Through Lives: The Midnight Library Book Review

This is my first book by Matt Haig, never heard of him before or his works and I've only begun reconnecting with reading and books last year. How I found out about this book is I went online and joined a ton of book groups and read through recommendations.

One recommendation said that it was a good book to turn to during depression. It piqued my interest because, of course, what in the world would be good to go through when you're depressed? Most books I've read are heart-wrenching, gut-punching, steal-your-soul kind of stories that leave me fazed for a while before I get into another book. It's interesting that there would be a book that you can flow through while not in the best state, and the impression is that it will be something that can somehow provide relief. 

The Tea

The story follows Nora Seed who has come to the point where she doesn't want to live anymore. There's a trail of regrets, she gets fired, her brother, her only living family member, couldn't give a damn about her and, to top it all off, her cat died. To the world outside, these sound like everyday things: people get out of touch, pets pass away, what might have been and could have been happens all the time too. But it all comes down to the experience, when all of it piles up and culminates together to make everything feel...just too much, or not enough anymore.

Nora Seed decides to die, but instead of dead she found herself waking up in a library at midnight where time is stopped. What seems like a representation of the in-between, the library is safeguarded by a librarian from her childhood. She presents Nora with shelves of books that contain every version of her life imaginable.

All life stories stem from the different choices she would have made in the past, holding countless possibilities and endless options. Nora opens one book after another and enters each life to find "the one" that she would continue to live in but finds, at every twist, that something always makes her feel disappointed somehow and come back to the midnight library. Until she comes to a realization.

The Feel

The way Matt Haig wrote this book is straightforward and simplistic. There's no beating around the bush or suspense build-up or anything, it's told as it is and while there are no secrets being held, there are key messages that are being discovered naturally throughout the book. The storyline is straight, no side plots or anything like that, it takes you down a narrative and doesn't stray from it which is a breath of fresh air from all the sci-fi and fantasy that I've dove into.

I can't completely say that it's a light read because it touches on big things too, it has its moments that make you think but not hurt as some books do when they touch on any big thing. The general feeling here, at least for me, is that I'm being counseled through these speculative things. It doesn't feel like Haig is dropping notion bombs at me and leaving me perplexed, it's more of an invitation into the idea that while there are infinite possibilities out there, none of them and, at the same time, all of them are the right life. Like Schrodinger's cat.

The Highlight and the Message

There's a level of relief, personally, when reading this book. It's like being counseled through internal narratives that deserve reassessment. It tackles a lot of what anxiety and depression focus on which is regret and fear. Despite having to zone in on those topics, the book somehow is able to gracefully allow space for self-examination. It's not preachy, or advice-y, it didn't have that "this notion is right' kind of feeling but more of an invitation into the possibility that this idea might be a helpful idea applicable to your situation.

The wonderful thing that Haig did for this book is that he used the speculation of limitless lives or possibilities as a way of finding a gem of a truth about the self that has always been there, only waiting to be discovered. It's a journey of realization and acceptance of the life you have now.