REVIEW: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

“Never underestimate the big importance of small things.” - Matt Haig

Trigger Warning: Mentions of depression and suicide.

Nora’s in her thirties and, when her cat dies suddenly, decides, that she no longer has a reason to live. A few hours and a deliberate overdose later, our protagonist finds herself in the Midnight Library, a library dedicated to her life and all the lives she could have lived, had she made different decisions throughout the past years.

Now she has the opportunity to test out the life of an Olympic gold medallist, a mother, a scientist… And see how different her life could have gone.

The writing is simple: short chapters, straightforward descriptions and easy dialogue.

I loved the idea of this novel, because of how easily relatable it is. Don’t we all long to see what our lives would be like, had we chosen a different degree? Had we not dumped that one partner? Had we stuck with playing the instrument? I immediately started thinking about what lives I would want to try out if I could.

Like the writing, the message of The Midnight Library is also rather simple: Life is never perfect. Haig desires to create a life-affirming story and does so quite bluntly, which is why, I guess, countless people disliked this novel. There is no big twist. There are some cool little details, like Nora meeting another traveller who gets to try out different lives and some people in the lives she tries out almost noticing that she’s not the(ir) “real” Nora, but apart from that, this story is all about Haig wanting to convey a very simple message: Keep going. The ability to make even the smallest decisions holds immense power, and as long as you can still do that, there’s hope for you.

While I’m open to criticism about this book for that reason, I don’t think the author really had another choice unless he wanted to write something rather hopeless. Nora had to, at some point, realise that maybe her old life still held potential. While it was obvious from the start, I don’t think it is necessarily a weakness of this work. I mean, what did you expect? For Haig to write that suicide is a valid option? That Nora really made all the wrong decisions?

For me, I honestly expected worse. Yes, I got from the beginning that this was about her learning to appreciate her life and to find her will to live and bla, but I honestly appreciated that this took her time and several tries as compared to just having her realise after one singular event. It wasn’t surprising but at least adequately convincing.

Now, while it’s up to you to decide whether the predictability of the plot is a dealbreaker for you (which would be valid), I would like to list a few further things I liked:

• I liked that Nora worried about sleeping with people in her “other” lives because she was unsure whether they could consent.

• I liked that she had depression in each one of her lives, degrees varying, because mental illness is never a “decision” thus being, at the core, unaffected by her choices.

• I liked that there was non-forced LGBTQ+ representation.

• I liked the low-key pretentious philosophy quotes (quotability of a book is much too big a factor to me).

• I liked the little dip into quantum physics.

• I liked the book of regrets as a concept.

All in all, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is not gonna earth-shatteringly cure your depression or make you realise that, actually, life is beautiful and worth living. But if you give it an honest chance, you might find yourself reevaluating some things you thought written in stone.

I don't think this book was written to save everyone. Maybe this is a book for people who are a little bit depressed, not for people with depression. This one isn’t gonna save your life if you’re in danger, it’s no magic sword or massive shield. But perhaps it can be a pocket knife to sharpen a stick or a bubble plaster against blisters on a long hike. Maybe instead of thinking about what this book should do for us, we should think about we can become the active part and do something with the book :)

I don't think this book is here to save us; I think it's trying to get us to understand that we can always try again, to save ourselves.