The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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♟️ Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5 stars)

Affiliate link: Grab your copy of The Midnight Library on Amazon 📚

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🚨 Trigger Warnings

• 💊 Suicide attempt / suicidal thoughts

• 🐈 Death of a pet (cat)

• 💔 Depression, grief, and loneliness

• 🍷 Alcohol use

• 🌊 Near-death experiences

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😍 My Quick Take

Wow. Like, capital W, underline, bold, italics — WOW.
This is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read.

The premise? Chef’s kiss — it’s something I’ve thought about a lot. Honestly, the book didn’t reveal anything earth-shatteringly new for me… because I already agreed with most of its conclusions. But reading it still felt like a warm hug from the universe.

Also, I loved the chess metaphor running through the book — totally nailed it. And as a chess lover myself, it made my nerdy little heart happy. ♟️

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⚠️ SPOILER WARNING — Full & Complete Plot Summary Ahead

If you haven’t read The Midnight Library yet and want to be surprised, skip this part and go order the book. Everyone else? Buckle up.

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🏫 Prologue: Bedford, 19 Years Ago

We meet Nora Seed, a teenager playing chess with school librarian Mrs. Elm. Nora’s quit competitive swimming, her dad’s disappointed, and Mrs. Elm gives her some life pep talk about endless possibilities (and casually suggests glaciology, as one does). News arrives: Nora’s dad has died from a heart attack. Mrs. Elm comforts her.

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📉 Present Day: Nora’s Worst 48 Hours Ever

Fast-forward 19 years. Nora’s in her 30s, living in Bedford, and everything falls apart:

• Her cat, Voltaire, dies 😿

• Her estranged brother Joe ignores her

• She gets fired from her music store job

• Her only music student quits

• And her personal history is riddled with regret: failed engagement, skipped trips, abandoned band dreams.

Feeling like a “black hole,” Nora writes a suicide note, overdoses on pills and wine, and slips into unconsciousness.

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📚 Enter: The Midnight Library

Instead of dying, Nora wakes in an infinite library where Mrs. Elm is the librarian. Each book contains a life she could have lived if she’d made different choices. The rules? She can try any life she wants… but once she finds the one worth living, she stays.

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🌍 Sampling Infinite Noras

Nora tries on a lot of lives:

• Married to Dan (meh)

• Rock star in The Labyrinths with Joe and Ravi (fun but empty)

• Champion swimmer (rich but lonely)

• Glaciologist (polar bear attack — nope)

• Married to Ash with a daughter (beautiful but still not quite right)

Each life teaches her something, but none feels perfect. She starts to realize… maybe there’s no such thing as a perfect life.

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💡 The Big Realization

During her polar bear scare, Nora understands she wants to live — she’s just been seeing life wrong. It’s not about spectacular achievements, it’s about living itself: messy, unpredictable, and ordinary moments.

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🕰️ The Clock is Ticking

The Midnight Library starts crumbling (because she’s close to choosing). Nora returns to her root life, survives her overdose, and wakes in the hospital.

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❤️ A New Chapter

Nora reaches out to people she’d withdrawn from:

• She reconnects with her brother

• She offers kindness to her neighbor

• She takes interest in Ash (the guy she could’ve married in one life)

• She starts appreciating small, daily joys instead of obsessing over regrets

She’s not “fixed,” but she’s living. And that’s the point.

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🤔 Final Thoughts

This book is like someone took all those late-night “what if” thoughts and wrapped them in a warm blanket of hope. If you’ve ever wished you could peek at the other versions of your life… read this.

It’s philosophical without being pretentious, comforting without being saccharine, and it might just make you see your own life differently.

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📚 If You Liked This, Try:

• Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi — time travel with emotional gut-punches

• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson — alternate life paths with historical twists

• Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore — a unique take on time and choices