Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

5 stars for The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

I am not usually keen to read books with title that contains the word "library" or "book". Past experiences have taught me to steer clear of such titles because somehow, these books just fail to keep me going. Well, that is until this book. I am so glad to have given this book a go.

This is one book the more I read, the more I like it. It is a story about living that is inspirational in its own right. It explores the theme of loneliness, grief, depression, love, regrets and the reason to exist.

The main thing about this book that makes it so interesting and mind-boggling is that it deals with the concept of multiverse, the idea that there are many parallel universes that exist, each one different from the other. The breathtaking part of it all is how the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics links up with the Midnight Library to create a library of possibilities, the notion that books are portals to all the lives we can be living.

Reading this book makes me feel as if I have lived many different lives, all variations of what can have been of the main character, Nora Seed. Indeed, every decision taken leads to a variation of sorts. To bring this point further, it means doing one thing differently is the same as doing everything differently. To quote "Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations."

Upon concluding the book, I cannot help but think of this question: How will you feel knowing that your life, the different variation of it, has the power to shape the life of others in more ways than one?


Publisher: Canongate Books; International Edition
Publication date: 1 Jan 2021

*** Favourite Quote 1 ***

Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations.

*** Favourite Quote 2 ***

Want is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely.

*** Favourite Quote 3 ***

Doing one thing differently is often the same as doing everything differently.

*** Favourite Quote 4 ***

‘Science tells us that the “grey zone” between life and death is a mysterious place. There is a singular point at which we are not one thing or another. Or rather we are both. Alive and dead. And in that moment between the two binaries, sometimes, just sometimes, we turn ourselves into a Schrödinger’s cat who may not only be alive or dead but may be every quantum possibility that exists in line with the universal wave function, including the possibility where we are chatting in a communal kitchen in Longyearbyen at one in the morning ...’

*** Favourite Quote 5 ***

Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.

*** Favourite Quote 6 ***

You don't have to understand life. You just have to live it.

~ The Midnight Library
Matt Haig

@}--->>--->>-----

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?

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.

*Blurb from Goodreads*

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