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Nora Seed is extremely depressed. Life isn’t going her way. She’s 35, she’s left her fiance, she’s on the outs with her best friend, her beloved cat just died on the heels of her mother’s death, she’s lost her job, she’s let down her brother and bandmates by quitting their band on the verge of potential stardom due to her anxiety, and she lives with the regrets of failing her father’s once lofty dreams for her Olympic swimming career. Everywhere she turns she sees her life as a hopeless failure and herself as a disappointment. In her despair, she decides she wants her life to be over and takes steps to end it. In the limbo between life and death she finds herself in the Midnight Library.

This magical library, overseen by a version of Mrs. Elm, Nora’s kindly grade school librarian, offers Nora the opportunity to choose “books�� that are variations on her life that exist in a kind of alternate universe. In theory, think of it like a fitting room in a clothing store, where she’s able to try on lives to see if there’s one she wants to buy into. The only catch is that the library and any opportunities therein will disappear forever if she doesn’t ultimately decide she wants to live.

I know. The description sounds pretty gloomy and dark, and I can’t argue too hard that it isn’t at least mildly depressive at times, but I would argue that it has a really beautiful and profoundly good point for all of us:

Don’t live a life of regret.

There were so many quotes that spoke to me in this book, but these are a few that stood out:

“It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.��

��...there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness forever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.��

��...we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.��

“We only know what we perceive. Everything we experience is ultimately our perception of it. ‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.’��

This book is deeply philosophical, so if that’s not your thing, you may not enjoy this one. I think Matt Haig is making his argument to the world to find the possibilities and contentment in the life you have, to appreciate the life you’ve been given and to live the life you want, not what others want or dream for you. Sometimes a good or bad life is simply determined by what we believe it to be. If you can see the point in the book, it’s brimming with hope and possibility!

★★★★