The Midnight Library: The Multi-million Copy Bestseller

It was my very first fiction book and I’m TRULY GLAD that I picked this one. If you’re at that point of your life where you’re carrying a lot of regrets from yourself. Like may be you could have done things differently, may you could have make a different decision, if you feel like you’ve let everyone down including then my friend, THIS BOOK IS PERFECT FOR YOU. It was very easy to read as an amateur reader, it was engaging, exciting. Sometimes boring in between but really unpredictable! I enjoyed it from the start till end, the ending was also perfect and not something unrealistically dreamy. Being an adult, exploring adulthood in my early twenties, I feel like everyone should read this book. I loved the main character Nora Seed. How she goes through a journey with a lot of realisations. I love her character development, it was so natural and amazing. So, it will be a 10/10 read for me.

I want to live my life being present. Lovely book when you hit bottom rock read this book it gives hope to be the best version of ourselves

It's the bestselling book of the author: Matt Haig. I have read his book: The life impossible. The author is known for his simple writing. Before starting this book, there is a line: "between life & death there is a library..."., which gives the idea about the book & what the reader is going to experience it while reading this book. The protagonist is Nora Seed. She is facing depression, loneliness, grief. After her death, she is stuck between life & death & has placed in the midnight library with Mrs Elm. In this library, there are millions of books, which represents different life, the protagonist could have lived. First to start reading with book of regets. Through these books, she experiences different lives, paths, versions. These steps of her different life, where each seems good or better than the last. With all of these alternate lives, there is nothing call as perfect & so there are bad & good moments. With this moments, there is a simple thing in the life to be always done is: just to keep hope. I feel that this book has a very interesting fantasy, comforting, rethink on the different perspectives & finally worth a read.

Well, I think it is safe to say I am in awe of Matt Haig. Simply awe of him. I absolutely love the way this man writes. After having read “The Comfort Book” I was so excited to read this book and it not only met my expectations but surpassed them. Big time! There is something to be said for the way Matt understands human emotions. He expresses them in such a profound manner that you feel ēach and every one of them. I am sure each and everyone of us in our life, at one point or another must have questioned ourselves - what if I had made a different choice? What if I had taken a different path? Where would I be? And that is what The Midnight Library is all about - regrets, what ifs, dreams, passions and so much more. This book is about Nora who is completely heartbroken, feels like a total failure, regrets the choices made in her life, feels unloved and hence decides to end her life. However she does not die but ends up in Midnight library which is a place between life and death. The library contains all books or rather possibilities of the life she could have lived if she had made different choices. Here she has a chance to undo any of her regrets and to get a chance to see if she could have been in a better place. If you are looking for a fantasy book as in witches and sorcerers, dragons and fairies then this is not the book for you. If you are looking for action or drama or magical powers then this is not the book for you. This book is deeply philosophical. It is a story that uses the fantasy of the endless library to reinforce in a simple yet powerful way that we can choose choices and not outcomes. We cannot change our past but the future is not yet lived and hence it can be written in any way we choose to. This book is hopeful. It is moving. It is real. It is beautiful.

I would like to thank amazon for amazingly delivering the book so kudos to them. "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig presents an intriguing premise through its protagonist, Nora Seed, who finds herself in a library between life and death. This library allows her to explore different lives she could have lived had she made different choices. While the concept is fascinating and taps into the popular idea of the multiverse, the execution feels somewhat predictable and lacks depth. Nora Seed’s journey across various lives echoes the common trope of "what if" scenarios, where she jumps from one version of her life to another. The narrative explores themes of regret, choice, and possibility, but the exploration of the multiverse is superficial. The idea that Nora can remember the lives she experiences, though it takes time, adds an interesting layer to the story, but the scope of the multiverse itself remains underdeveloped. For instance, when Nora meets another character in Svalbard who can also shift between lives, it raises intriguing possibilities that are ultimately left unexplored. It feels as though the premise of the book is almost entirely based on a quote from Sylvia Plath’s "The Bell Jar": "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked... and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." This quote encapsulates the paralysis of choice and the inevitable loss that comes with indecision—central themes in "The Midnight Library." However, where Plath’s metaphor is rich and evocative, Haig’s exploration feels less nuanced. Throughout the book, Nora quotes philosophers like Kant and mostly Thoreau, but these references are often superficial. Though she may cite their ideas, the book doesn’t delve deeply into them. The philosophical musings seem to serve more as a backdrop to the central message of "carpe diem" rather than being fully explored or integrated into the narrative. This stands in contrast to the seamless blend of philosophy and storytelling found in the works of Haruki Murakami, where philosophical themes feel organic and deeply intertwined with the plot. Overall, "The Midnight Library" is an enjoyable but ultimately forgettable read. It’s a book that touches on big ideas but never fully engages with them, leaving the reader wanting more depth and exploration. For me, it’s a one-time read that I would rate 3 stars 🌟

The quality of the book is good .The book is an easy read for beginners and It's a must read if you're someone who is lost in betweens and regretting upon past decesions or current situations perhaps this book will help you to get out of that state of mind .

This book left me in quiet wonder about what it truly takes to live a life, rather than just understand the meaning of it. The Midnight Library is a beautifully written time-travel story with a hard-hitting, deeply human message at its core. It makes you pause and ask uncomfortable questions: No matter how many regrets we try to leave behind, would changing them really change our happiness? Every choice we make opens up a hundred different possibilities, each capable of altering the course of our lives in ways we can’t predict. What stayed with me most is the reminder that every single day gives us opportunities to redefine how we live. Not by chasing a perfect life, but by accepting the imperfect one we already have. Thought-provoking, emotional, and quietly powerful—this book doesn’t just tell a story, it lingers with you long after the last page.

If anyone is struggling with any existential or mental health issues, or just any complaint with life in general, please read this book. It has helped me, and I am sure it will help anyone else who reads it. Thank you Matt, for the wonderful work.

I find myself lately reading what I think are very good books. From the pleasant to the thought provoking to the fun to the serious and enlightening to the masterful to the beautiful to the despairing and tragic. This I tell you is a read that yet again I cannot properly articulate into language on the fundamental essence of its themes and context. To put simply, it is quite something that I totally did not expect in many ways, although I expected in some. But as I read and discovered, it is truly remarkable. So here is what I will write with my utmost ability in describing something so accessibly written and simply said, yet so profound and significant. What comes to mind when I recall back as I turned from page to page is a question - “What Does It Mean To Be Human?”. It is apparent to me that I am yet again, reminded that what seems to be the things we want aren’t necessarily so and the things we truly need or want have been many a times right in front of us I suppose. When I look up at the stars at night, I am acutely aware how insignificant and meaningless we all are individually. How abysmal most of our efforts are in trying to live up to Human made concepts of what is considered to be an appropriate life and how one should behave. What I have learned from this is that there is no appropriate way, there is of course being a decent human being and how we can treat each other better. But there is NO absolute way of living. There is just living and figuring it out as we go along. The Midnight Library would definitely be one of my cherished books for this time around, as it solicits perspectives, drives hard the extremes of what is possible, and forces one to contemplate infinity and the singularity of all things. For some reason, I feel hope because I feel I have a better understanding of what being present in your current situation entails. This perhaps is cliche and cringy to say, but it’s the truth. I believe we all know this, but we tend to need reminders every now and then. After all, our perfection as individuals and on the whole; Humanity, is that our perfection lies within the imperfections, the Chaos of Life. I conclude my personal review with this; with another idea or perhaps a stipulation: everyone has their own direction of life and their own codes of philosophy to live by, yet the as we slowly step towards the vast and endless unknown, it is the potential of the indeterminate future that allows us to discover new things, try different things, and grow and break and grow and break again. I believe that is what we call progress. If you cannot tell from my bias, this book is definitely worth the time to read and consider and contemplate. I am in a situation right now where I am hesitant on certain moves and of future prospects, but this has provided some much needed clarity. Not bad Haig. You indeed did your job.

So many options can be pursued when evaluating a book. Did the author create believable and consistent characters? Did the author manufacture vivid scenes and detailed locations? Did the author include Easter eggs for the reader to find, anagrams of names (like in the Series of Unfortunate Events) or a play on words or an alliteration or metaphors or similes or puns? Did the author include references to real world events or people or places that the reader can connect to? Did the author explore a familiar concept in a new way? Did the author give the characters words to say that connect with the reader and their view of life? Did the author overuse actual dialogue or internal monologue to explain the story instead of relying upon actual action. There are so many options for the reviewer, just as there are so many options for the main character in this book. Nora Seed finds herself in a library at the stroke of midnight, with lots of books around her and a librarian from her childhood, Mrs. Elm. Each book represents a different version of Nora’s life, a life of joys and sorrows, people and places, events and tragedies that spawned from a single choice, a decision, or in the case of this girl so full of regrets, something that didn’t happen because she didn’t make that choice. Of course, there is the root life, the life that Nora remembers living, a life full of disappointments and settling, that led to her attempted suicide and her visits to the Midnight Library. A moment in between, where she isn’t alive and in her body yet she isn’t dead (with the finality that means for self and others). And there are all of those other lives that she now gets to explore, lives where she doesn’t remember any of that Nora’s life, but finds herself plopped there with a kid yet no memory of this child, or as a wife with no memory of sleeping with her husband, or as a glaciologist with no memory of what such a scientist knows, or as a pop star with no memory of the words to popular songs, or as a pub owner with no memory of what to do when closing. Lives, but without the memories that led her there. An interesting thread running throughout the book is that of Hugo, another slider who explores his own lives. Hugo and Nora meet up several times, though find that the other isn’t what they want and each chooses to go back to their own terminal, hers a library and his a video store. I expected them to meet up at the end, as they had such a powerful connection through their sliding, both aware of themselves and of others, but no. it wasn’t to be. I’m not disappointed, just wondering if such a possibility exists, and if I will get this chance one day. And I wonder how Hugo arrived at this point, if his was also a suicide, and if it only happened to suicides or lives so filled with regrets. A question I still have is about the character of Mrs. Elm (for Nora) or the uncle (for Hugo) and the place where these shamans or guides or facilitators resided. Both sliders found themselves in an in-between place with a familiar character as the trusted one, not someone who used them but someone who in real life helped them find their own way. A good person. An older person who helped at a pivotal time in their life. I find it cool that the author (Matt Haig) crafted a god-like character, not one who superimposes her/his will on you but one who is limited in what they can do by the physics of the world (a library or a video store) they are trapped in. Not all-powerful. Not desiring worship. Not governed by human impulses (power and sex). But a personal god whose sole interest was in the needs and wants of a single person, a much better concept (to me) than the invented gods of the modern world that seem interested in humanity as a whole (and worship and knee-bending and blind obedience and all of that stupidity). If we could wipe away all of the old gods and create a new god for each person today, this would be the kind of god I would like to think about. Though there is that question about universality, and whether everything we think and feel isn’t just arising from our own experiences, including all of this god-talk. I enjoyed finding things in this book. Like the title, on page 31. And the name of the band, a variation of the Kurt Vonnegut classic, Slaughterhouse Five. And the name of the music shop that sounds like the idea behind all of the lived lives in this book, String Theory. And the references to Bedford and Pottersville, connecting readers to the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”. And life-fright being similar to stage-fright. And the role of chess in the book, from its beginning to its end, something that used to be a major part of my own life as an educator. And glitches in the library that stemmed from Nora thinking differently about death than she did in her root life. And I had to look up “grasshopper suicide”, because the character told me to, and how many forms of life there are (almost nine million), and Frank Ocean (“Moon River” was awesome). Another interesting concept is that of time. Time doesn’t pass for Nora in the real world as she pulls out numerous books from the library shelves, some exploring for a few minutes, others for hours or days or months. Yet the clock never moves past 12:00 in slide after slide, life after life, universe after universe, until her thinking changes in such a way that she no longer regrets the choices she made in her root life. And then the clock starts ticking and Mrs. Elm warns her that she must do just one thing in order to survive, pick that one book, and, wait, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it gets to 00:03:48. If you want to know what happens to Nora, then read this book. It is really good and worth your time. And if you are the philosophical type (as I am), then keep a notepad and pen nearby so that you can write down the interesting thoughts and ideas that flow from the mind of Nora Seed, the questions she ponders, the truths she shares with the world. And I will end on a final thought, one found on page 137, about life and what it is: “…acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty.” Something to think about.

MARAVILHOSO ESSE LIVRO. Li muuuito rápido, bem divertido

Es verdaderamente increíble, nos lleva a reflexionar sobre las cosas importantes en la vida

I don't think I can do this book/review enough justice but I'm going to give it my best shot... If there is one book I would urge you and shout at you to buy it would be this on. Go do it. Treat yourself You will not regret it. I promise. This is going straight into my top twenty of the year reads. I've awarded it five stars and I'd award more if I could! How do I start? I must admit it's not what I expected at all. But I feel it was just what I needed right now honestly. This book is going to be huge. This book for me was amazing, outstanding, life changing, powerful and thought provoking. Honestly have you ever felt so low you wanted to die? Then this book is for you. It will change your whole perspective on life. It has for me. It's taught me A LOT of life lessons and how I see my life. I actually have fallen in love with this book and I don't say that lightly. I don't want to ruin this for anyone but if you could view every possible outcome of your life would you? Would you ever be happy? Just wow. It's taught me to open my eyes, appreciate what I have not what I want. Life is life. Life is beautiful. I loved it all. I devoured it in a day. Beautifully told. An easy read for me done in a day but one I felt I NEEDED to read right at this moment in my life. Now this is my review others may feel differently about this book and some may hate it. But I cant explain how much I loved, enjoyed and needed this book. One I can always go back too when I'm feeling low. Uplifting. So thank you Matt. Absolutely brilliant. Grateful. It's really made me think and I miss it already. Perfection.