The Midnight Library

Après avoir découvert Matt Haig avec deux livres de non-fiction, j'avais envie de le connaître sous une autre facette, celle de romancier. J'ai alors choisi son dernier roman, paru en 2020 : The Midnight Library.

Ce roman nous propose de suivre l'aventure pseudo-fantastique de Nora Reed, une trentenaire anglaise souffrant de dépression, alors qu'elle semble avoir perdu toute envie de vivre. Au seuil de la vie et de la mort, elle découvre une incroyable bibliothèque géante où chaque livre lui donne accès à une de ses vies possibles, si elle avait fait un jour un choix différent.

Continuer la natation pour faire plaisir à son père et espérer concourir aux Jeux Olympiques ? Suivre le rêve de son frère de devenir une rock-star dans le groupe de musique qu'ils avaient formé ensemble ? Devenir une scientifique en mission sur les glaciers arctiques ? Poursuivre ses études en philosophie ? Ouvrir un pub avec son ex-fiancé qu'elle a quitté juste avant le mariage ? Terminer le roman qu'elle avait abandonné ? Accepter l'invitation de son voisin à prendre un café ?

Autant de choix et de vies que Nora regrette, alors qu'elle se sent abandonnée, inutile, coincée dans une vie qui ne lui convient pas : son frère ne lui parle plus, sa meilleure amie est partie en Australie, son patron vient de la virer, et son chat Voltaire vient de mourir.

Dans cette librairie fantastique, Nora explore les vies qui auraient pu être la sienne, et apprend à mettre de côté ses regrets.

The Midnight Library est un livre touchant et joliment écrit. Il n'y a pas d'énorme surprise dans le récit, on sent assez vite où l'auteur veut nous emmener, mais c'est efficace et élégant. On n'échappe à quelques leçons ou clichés que l'on croirait sorties d'un livre de développement personnel quelconque (“il ne faut pas essayer de comprendre la vie, il faut la vivre”), mais cela reste très minoritaire dans un texte réussi.

Je suis donc plutôt convaincu par les talents de romancier de Matt Haig, que je continuerai à suivre avec intérêt. J'ai d'ailleurs un autre de ses romans qui m'attend sur ma liseuse et qui pourrait bien être ma prochaine lecture.

Wouldn't say its a MUST read, but it was enjoyable :) The concept of living your past regrets isn't anything new, but the message that the book thouroughly exlpothouroughly exlpores with every diffierenty hopeful- that your life isn't defined by your successes or choices, but by your relationships with others and yourself. Reading this almost felt like a dream with its pace, first slowly exploring each life but then blurring through millions of options at once.

It's unexpectedly hard for me to write a review on this book... I guess it is an average book, quite predictable and cliche, but in a way that it makes you want it to be cliche. It is pretty straight forward, it has a likeable main character, and the concept is quite interesting. If anything, I would have liked to read about other settings, besides the library, as well. I don't know, for some reason the mention of the restaurant really got me wondering. What would they serve?

The first part of the book felt quite depressing to me, the middle felt more like fantasy, and the end felt a bit over the top. I actually wanted it to be longer, everything concluded a bit too quickly. However, I did enjoy it. In essence, 'The Midnight Library' is an easy read, and it is a hopeful story. But after having read it, I don't feel like it did much for me. Given the concept of it, I feel like it should have been more impactful. I am not mad, though, I did genuinely enjoy reading it, and I probably would have been amazed by it to read it as a teenager.

I had borrowed another audiobook when this hold came in. This is a title I was excited about because I've heard about it on Litsy and Booktok. It did take a little bit to get into, as the book has a depressing start. Trigger warning of depression and suicide.

But then it gets into the different lives the main character, Nora, could have had. It's pretty much a big game of What If. Which I've played many times. I try not to because everything that I've gone through has made me the person I am today.

The audiobook was read by Carey Mulligan. I loved hearing her voice read to me.

I didn't get to write this review right after I finished, so this is brief.

Made me cry, so automatically 5 stars, I don't make the rules.

Having been through depths of depression, sadness and hard times and finally feeling better, this book was a roaring fire of optimism and will to live. It was beautiful, soothing and touching my soul at every page. If you feel ever dissatisfied with life, give it a chance and change your perspective, go through your own midnight library and find your way

Consider me conflicted about this book. In a lot of ways, it was strong throughout, but I felt like I was back in my early creative writing workshops where there will be a story that seems to want to say something, then falls apart at the denouement.

I loved the premise and the set up. There was power in what happened and led Nora to the Midnight Library, where she's met by her childhood librarian who embraced her during one of the most stressful moments of her life. She's forced to look through her “Book of Regrets” and then navigate alternative realities throughout the library, with each book a different life an alternative her was leading, or thusly, alternative lives she could lead if she chose to.

Like I said, the set up for this is fantastic and pulled me in. Yet somehow, over the span of the mid-section of the book, it was starting to lose me. Still a somewhat breezy read that went fast, something about it felt... trite?

Seeing what Nora could have been and her self-actualizations was great, but as the book wore on there was an increasing sense of something missing from her story. There wasn't a lot the author was saying about her trauma and lived experience beyond “well what if she wasn't depressed and worked harder? She could be ANYTHING!”

It wasn't a bad book, but i did not find it great either. Maybe I was not the intended audience, as I kept feeling it seemed to be written with more of YA crowd (no knock per se i love many YA fantasies) but it seemed that every thing was spelled out. There was a predictability about the plot that never surprised. It was a perfectly enjoyable and simple read, but it never elevated to beyond a 3* threshold.

Okay THIS was worth the hype and SO good!! Look at me giving two five stars in a row. Who am I??

I couldn't put this book down and OFFERED to do errands for my husband happily so I could continue reading this audiobook.

This was so good! Loved that she was a philosophy grad, loved the way this story flowed, and loved how it was written. Pacing was great and once it hit its stride it was perfect. There are so many good nuggets and quotes here but I encourage everyone to read this book and get the wisdom themselves.

Just downloaded two more books from this author!

it sounded pretty much like self help for most of the book as we follow Nora Seed through her journey to finding joy and will to live a hundrer lives that are not hers until she finds out she actually was supposed to be living her own life and dealing with her own decisions. I'm not very much a fan of this type of narrative and it was quite repetitive the way the reader is thrown into a new life every other chapter to have to find out with Nora what is crackalackin' in this new life. It reminded me of Click (the 2006 comedy with Adam Sandler) where he tries to skip the boring life until he finds himself where he wanted to supposedly, but with this version Nora is not skipping, she's almost changing the past as apparently these are all of the possible versions of herself that would be true had she decided to take another route.
I was reading this as part of a book club and this is one of the reasons why I finished it but I wouldn't say I disliked the book as at some point I was very invested in knowing what was going to happen to Nora.
The ending was definitely not surprising as you know from these type of “life changing experience” kind of stories that the main character will find their true motive and move along with life as it should be.

If this book helped your mental health that is great. I do not want to knock it if it's important to people, so if you are fond of this book for that reason you should stop reading this review as I am critical of it, but also want to be mindful it could help some people. 

I think this book has some views on life and health that doesn't sit right with me. Having someone stop himself from getting a heart attack because “he got healthy again” is a problematic view point, especially considering most heart diseases are hereditary and not because you don't work out as much as you did when you were 20. I also think the librarian telling someone who committed suicide that there's “Tissues are like lives. There are always more” ignorant.... If someone commits suicide that's it. I think if I was a loved one of someone who committed suicide I would be very upset seeing that be said.