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The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 

Paperback The Midnight Library

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 blockbuster novel, Nora Seed, faces 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.

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Book ID

Title: The Midnight Library

Author: Matt Haig

Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd

Pages: 288

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Mental Health


The Midnight Library is the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award in 2020 for the fiction category. Usually, the winner of this award is the most popular and offers the unique and best experience in a book during that year. I have such high hope for The Midnight Library.

The fantasy fiction is a story about an a-thirty-something woman name Nora. She feels everything in her life is such a failure. Her parents passed away, she found out that her brother comes into the town but didn't bother to meet her. She just lost her job as, part-time piano teacher and storekeeper at a bookstore. At the top of that, her cat, died. Even, she cannot take care of an innocent soul, Volt, her cat.

Nora used to be a brilliant swimmer, a candidate for Olympics, then she quit. She had a band with her brother and almost sealed a deal with the record company, but she had difficulty meeting a mass of people, so she backed up. She has broken up with her boyfriend, Dan, before their wedding. She didn't go to Australia with her friend. She stuck.

That night, when her cat died, she decided she doesn't want to live no longer. 

Limbo, she is drawn into a strange library, The Midnight Library. There, she met with her former librarian, Mrs. Elms who said that Nora has opportunities to redo her regrets. All she does is chose a book, and she will be sent into a parallel universe where Nora chose a different path in her life.

She starts with revisiting her life when she stayed with Dan and has a local pub. But she understands that even she marry him, she cannot more than happy. Then she visits her other many choices, small and big, she becomes any job, rich and poor, short hair and long hair, healthy or poor health.  

Since Nora was graduated from Philosophy, there are a lot of quotes. When she traveled from one life to another, she started to understand a lot of things about life, the essence of life. The aim is to find the best life that suits her. But did she find it?

I think most peoples know the answers right away. It is a self-help book, we understand the bigger message behind this book. 

Well, like I said, I have such high hope for this book. It is a good book, a noble book, but just that, I don't emotionally drown. Nora's character, her depression, and her witty character are understandable, but not loveable. 

Since there are lots of philosophical quotations, I skip-reading them. I just not into that read. I love a deep talk about the essence of life, but not with that big portion.

In terms of plot, I have no complaint. In the early chapters Nora revisits her regrets, it is explained in detail, then by the book's progress, it was fast-forwarded. 

I think, the reason why it is hard for me to keep engaged with this book, it is because I know where it is going. But don't bother me, the deep knowledge about depression, what she felt, what she's thinking were so detail and realistic. It is kind of a book that made the reader thinking back about life, regrets, and the decisions that shaped us to be the current version of ourselves.

Yes, it should be made a big impact on the reader. The dictions were also beautiful. And the idea is noble and brilliant! So, don't hesitate to read it!





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