Book Talk: ‘The Midnight Library’

By Dan De Neve

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is a twist on a theme many of us have thought about—what would our life be like if we had made different choices?

This book is not a tale of one character’s regrets. Rather, the story asks, “How would my life look had I made a different choice or choices?”

Nora Reed is an exceptionally smart and talented individual. She could have been an Olympic swimmer. She was a self-taught expert musician of varied styles, from classical to rock. 

Nora was so good that her and her brother’s band were on the verge of signing with a record label, but then she quit the band. Nora almost moved to England to run an inn with her fiancé.

Nora, however, wants to die.

Between life and death exists The Midnight Library, and it is here that Nora goes after deciding to die. Mrs. Elm is the librarian at The Midnight Library and, coincidentally, was the librarian at Hazeldene School when Nora attended there and lost her mother.

Mrs. Elm guides Nora to books that allow her to actually enter into another life she could have lived. 

While this might seem intriguing to some, Nora always finds herself trying to get oriented to her “new” life. Thankfully, she always has her cellphone to look up who she is. In one life, Nora is unhappily married to the boyfriend she broke up with two days before their wedding in her real, or what is called her “root” life. 

In another, she is a glaciologist who encounters Hugo, who is also in and out of other possible lives, but from a video store.  Hugo proceeds to tell Nora that there are many others like them, called sliders.

Interestingly, these alternative lives are not just possibilities. Each time Nora leaves an alternative life and goes back to the library, the Nora in the alternative life returns to that stream, which continues.

Unfortunately, Nora realizes that no alternative life is perfect. Tradeoffs exist in every life she can live. Even when everything seems perfect, she encounters a music student she had in her root life that is now a juvenile delinquent. Despite everything else being perfect, she realizes that she must go back and make a difference in the young boy’s life.

The Midnight Library is a fast-paced, thought-provoking, quick read. I enjoyed reflecting on decisions I made and what my life would have looked like. It was also fascinating to think about those decisions that others in my life made that affected my life’s course.

The book was the October read for the Seaside Book group at the Dana Point Library. The group meets on the fourth Monday of the month at 10:30 a.m. 

For more information, please call 949.496.5517, or stop by the library.

Dan De Neve is a longtime employee of the Orange County Public Library. He currently works at the Dana Point Library as the Adult Services Librarian. He is an avid reader of history, biographies and sports.