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I have read only one other Matt Haig title, The Comfort Book, which Heart.Wants.Books reviewed in December 2021 as part of our Comfort Reads theme. I’m frustrated and yet unsurprised that it has taken me 1.5 years to read another title even though his backlist has been on the TBR for that long. But, lately our reading has been taking into consideration other ‘Comfort Reads’ – those of a more Distracting variety…the collective works of one Sarah J. Maas. Nikki and I have completed our re-reads of both The Assassin’s Blade and Throne of Glass, and have started Crown of Midnight. So keep coming back, check out the Reading Life Review, to see where we are on this Maas Distraction Journey.

So, here we are, reading another emphatically humanitarian title by British author Matt Haig. He has many more titles for adults and children in his published works which you can find on his website above. He lives with partner and fellow writer Andrea Semple with their two children in Brighton. Haig has made no secret of his depression and the darkness of his own suicidal thoughts. He has used those times of his life to create poignant works. 

With The Midnight Library, I struggled at the very beginning. I did not feel connected to Nora Seed and her depression and her negative outlook on life in general. What the blurb of the book avoids saying is HOW Nora arrives at the midnight library, the place where time stands still between life and death and where a person can decide to try any of the infinite lives that they could have lived had they made one decision differently. Nora is guided through her possible lives by her childhood librarian Mrs. Elm to find the one life that she would rather live than the life she left. The beginning of the book and Nora’s lackluster attitude about any life, her root life or the possible lives she could have lived, was the opposite of such critic reviews like: “A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits.” that I almost had to put it down. But, once Nora meets Hugo I was in it until the end and loved it so much.

I’m going to give The Midnight Library a solid four-starred review. I struggled too much at the beginning and I’m thinking that the book was just not the right title for me at the right time and so my star rating reflects that struggle. I will still recommend Haig’s work without reservation but also with the warning about the negative life outlook espoused by our main character. But, I want to leave you with a quotation that I might put on a sticker: “All good things are wild and free.”

~Ashley

The Midnight Library has been staring at me from my physical TBR stack for about a year and a half, when a friend of the blog (and IRL) sent me a copy along with a note that she’d found it really inspiring.  As I am want to do, once Ashley and I decided to dive in, I didn’t read the jacket copy and went for it, as much as I do with any physical book, and I agree with Ashley’s assessment of the situation wholeheartedly, yet I have more to say.  

Darling readers, please do heed a trigger warning for severe depression and attempted suicide.  (If it is discussed in the first line, it is not a spoiler.)  I could list more (deaths of loved ones, pets, etc.), but instead, know the DMs are always open if you have specific concerns.  

Matt Haig is an amazing writer, with such depth to his works.  I don’t think I could have emotionally handled binging The Midnight Library if the stars aligned.  I did pick this book up, and put it down several times over the week I read it, sometimes for life, and other times because the first chunk of this title is heavy.  Themes of “what if” abound as Nora considers what she regrets and how making different choices in those moments would have changed her life, and therefore which book she should open in the titular library.  I won’t spoil where Nora (and presumably Haig) land with that complex topic, but y’all, THAT is the hope in this book.  If you’ve ever struggled with your own what ifs, please consider if this title might be right for you.  

Despite the lack of a bow, because the amazing bow of an epilogue was right there and yet does not exist in canon, I’m still giving The Midnight Library four emphatic stars.  In keeping with Nora’s headspace at the beginning of the book, it is a hard start, but the middle and end are so fun.  I really enjoyed the idea of thoroughly exploring how life might be different if the big things were different, and absolutely adore the grace and hope in the ending.  I’m not sure I’ll reread this, but it has earned staying power on my shelf and confirmed my interest in anything Haig has written or will write.

What’s a book that has granted or confirmed a season pass but was hard to read?

~Nikki 

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