The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Kindle & Audible: US or CA
Morning Readers & Happy Monday!
*Trigger warning for those with depression & suicidal thoughts*
If all has gone according to plan today I am assembling my gazebo! It’s been a really rough month and for all my preaching of ‘diversifying your diet’ I realized that, while sequestering myself at home in an attempt to compartmentalize my life, I’ve also managed to pick up a LOT of books dealing with some heavy mental health issues, this girl needs some shade & a margarita.
Now, despite being one of those heavy hitters, The Midnight Library has easily made itself comfortable on my shelf of favorites.
In the face of meaninglessness and despair it looks to life as infinite possibility, in the context of Nora being able to read through each life that she might have lived while caught between life and death. It kind of reads off the idea behind the butterfly-effect, what could one small decision change in the trajectory of your life? It also follows Nora as she re-evaluates her measures of success and happiness.
“Nora had read about multiverses and knew a bit about Gestalt psychology. About how human brains take complex information about the world and simplify it, so that when a human looks at a tree it translates the intricately complex mass of leaves and branches into this thing called a ‘tree’. To be a human was to continually dumb the world down into an understandable story that keeps things simple.”
“But you will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life,” he said, wisely. “You’re quoting Camus”
“It might looks small and ordinary but it isn’t. Because a pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. One square after another. And you can get to the other side and unlock all kinds of power.”
“It’s now what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” “You know Thoreau?”
I loved the trajectory of this narrative, and really appreciated the ending. It didn’t end as if it was trying to tie up loose ends & give us a industry standard ‘happily ever after’. I think this is a beautiful, must read for everyone, but especially those who might be struggling to overcome their own thoughts and situations. While debatable as classroom appropriate (it does address the defining subject quite bluntly and head-on) I would absolutely look to it as material for book clubs & discussions!
Although I would suggest maybe spacing out Mrs. Dalloway, The Wedding People, Betty, The Great Alone and The Midnight Library. For the love of all that is good, you do not need to read all 5 of these books in the same month. They are all amazing stories, and I would highly recommend each of them, but they all require a lot of emotional investment and empathy that can quickly overwhelm. I often turn to reading as a way of de-stressing, this month was not that LOL!
Regardless of my new found excuse for a seaside getaway, my two biggest measures to know if a book is a success to me usually comes down to these three questions:
1. Will I remember this book in 20 years?
2. Does this book speak a deeper truth that I need to hear?
3. Does this book offer a new perspective?
To each of these question, yes. A resounding, yes!
-Anna R.
*As always if you purchase through any of the links in this post, or throughout this blog, a small commission comes back to help support the page & what I do here!
Kindle & Audible: US or CA
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