This feels somewhat at odds with a lot of the things we are taught about the pursuit of happiness. The pivotal moments for Nora don’t happen when she’s just CONTENT. Other powerful moments in the book happen when Nora is experiencing extreme emotions – love, fear, pride, adoration, strength – they’re feelings at the extremes. It’s no coincidence that this strong emotion triggers such a powerful feeling in her, but I’m just not sure I’ve given this enough thought lately. I don’t think polar bears look this chummy in real lifeĪs you might expect, she’s terrified – properly beside herself with fear – but this moment is also the first moment where she realises that she doesn’t want to die, that life might be worth living after all.

One of the pivotal moments in the book happens when, in one of her parallel lives, Nora is confronted by a polar bear. When I started reading The Midnight Library I figured I knew exactly what was coming – it’s a lesson in living life with no regrets, of not always wishing the grass was greener or imagining what your life might be like if only…Īnd yes, it is about that – the plot isn’t surprising in that sense – but it’s about something else too, which I’m not sure I had expected or appreciated quite as much. The library offers her the chance to reflect on her life and her regrets and to try different lives, lives where she’d made different choices. The basic premise is that a woman called Nora decides to kill herself, and before she dies she finds herself in the Midnight Library. He just makes the whole thing so easy. There aren’t those difficult chapters at the beginning where you have to get to know the characters, you never say ‘it took me a while to get into but…’ you’re just THERE, in the story from page one. I’ve read a few Matt Haig books before and I always really enjoy them. If you follow me on Instagram stories, you’ll know that I accidentally stayed in bed until lunchtime one day this week reading The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

The midnight library a novel