A pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting.
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
Genre: Contemporary Sci-Fi
About: Nora isn't good at life. She hasn't made a 'success' of things. At 35, she's alone, jobless and catless. Her regrets are numerous and there doesn't seem to be a way forward in her current life. It's too late. But when she awakens in the midnight library, she's given infinite paths of different versions of her life. The ones where she made the 'right' choices. Now she just has to decide one thing: which life to choose?
The Good
It's impossible to read this book without some self-reflection on your own life. Nora gets to see multiple versions of herself, playing out those lives based on things she thinks she regrets doing, or not doing. It made me wonder what another Helen might think of my current life, as well as envision the Helen that did the things I regret not doing. Ultimately, it's a book that offers a useful perspective. Regrets are not the barriers we think they are and achievements, great or small, are not the nourishment needed for a well-lived life.
The Bad
We're dealing with parallel worlds here and while I can suspend my disbelief to see the point of the novel, it did take me out of the story sometimes. How time works and how Nora slides in and out of those lives just didn't make a whole lot of sense. At first disappointment is suppose to bring her back but that turns out not to be strictly true (or superfluous as it can just be disappointment in a moment rather than in the life). Then it's said that the lives are different paths made from decisions she didn't choose, only that doesn't seem true either. The lives seem more based on imagination (Nora is asked to stretch her imagination in order to travel) rather than another reality. And the time spent in the different lives can last several weeks, but then when she goes into another life, we're back to starting at midnight, so do all the lives reset? Has what she's done in one life been erased, or are they all running on different times? It doesn't matter to the messaging of the book of course, but I would have liked a clearer explanation of what was really going on, or the rules to make sense.
The Somewhat Iffy
The ideas behind this novel are great and many people would benefit from reading. In fact it's hard to think of anyone who wouldn't find some value in this novel. But one message is a bit much to swallow and that is the idea that anything is possible. I can get on board with our lives being a tree with an infinite number of branches, but some of the branches Nora or other characters wander down seem very fantasy-based. At least, for me, I don't believe my tree has a branch that will lead to a Nobel Prize, or Olympic gold, or rock-stardom. Nora takes some lives based on a regret of not pursuing a particular talent she has, with the inference being that following that dream would have lead to extreme levels of success, and I don't buy it. Many people are talented or have particular life goals, but even if these are pursued, they don't automatically rise to the level of success we're led to believe Nora could have.
Also, not that important, but I really thought the LA fires were going to have some meaning as they were mentioned throughout several of her lives and became a recurring theme so I was a bit surprised they didn't mean anything.
Overall
A easy read that also makes you think. I'd only read How to Stop Time by Matt Haig previously and I didn't connect with any of the characters in that one, but here Nora was a character I thoroughly enjoyed following. This is a genuinely interesting read and one I would highly recommend for any reader.
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