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Brandy wrote: "Do you have a character in your life that you think would be a good character for your Mrs. Elm"
What an excellent question. I would say my grandmother would be that person. Though I also had some excellent mentors/guides among my teachers--Dan Purtee, Byron Smith, Josephine Alexander, Opal Flick, Mike Jester.

Brandy wrote: "Do you have a character in your life that you think would be a good character for your Mrs. Elm
I went to a very odd school at the age of 7. I think I was there for 2-3 years and I for sure left w..."

I love that story! I love that teacher and her emphasis! I think it can all be done well if you give a good mix within the curriculum and instruction. (Okay, I am a displaced elementary educator...)

Brandy wrote: "Was their a specific timeline you wished Nora would visit?"
I think she hit all of them that I could imagine.

Brandy wrote: "They say in the book that not all of the libraries are libraries they could be recordshops or old blockbuster videos, or whatever... What do you think your midnight library would look like?"
I was wondering about that as I read this. I can't imagine mine wouldn't be a library just because of my love of books.

However, I wondered about a train station with all these different trains arriving and departing and you could select any one of them to a new destination/life.

Lilith wrote: "Heather wrote: "Heather wrote: "I'm curious ... do you think this book is magic realism? There's a difference of opinion based on the community book tags.

When I think of magic realism, I think of wallpaper that changes based on..."

I agree with you completely.

My litmus test is:

Can you take *all* of the "magic" bits out of the story ----- and still have a story?

With a fantasy, stripping out the magical bits leave you, well, without a story.

But I usually hesitate to say anything, as in this challenge, it's: your challenge, your rules.
"
I like this distinction. It makes sense. Though I'm not sure I follow it all the time. 😊

And just because each of us can define the prompts in our own way, doesn't mean discussion can't be had about our different definitions! 😃 After all, that's how we learn to refine our own understanding.

Chrissi wrote: "Just read it last weekend, so thought I'd join in! I've finished it, so my responses here are from anywhere in the book.

How did you hear about this book?
It appeared on a lot of lists as a book t..."
I like your feelings toward Nora. I just wanted to stand there and hug her until she finally relented and responded.

You describe perfectly those "unintended consequences" of altering "reality." This reminded me much of 11/22/63 which was also an excellent read, though not necessarily in the same way...

Brandy wrote: "If you had the opportunity to try out some of your own dream lives, would you?"

Definitely! I would consider it a great opportunity to learn from experience without having to actually live the whole lifetime...

Trish wrote: "Catching up on the discussion and questions so far:

1) How did you hear about this book?

I'd half clocked its existence on Amazon, but I didn't really pay much attention to it until it was the g..."
I want a copy of To Be A Cat in my hands...now! LOL

Teri wrote: "I loved this book and there were so many quotes that spoke to me. 5 stars."

Me, too. I marked a lot of passages!

Brandy wrote: "What would your strategy be if you found yourself in a parallel life"
I thought it was great that she basically didn't have time to research beforehand and just had to "go with the flow" once she was in a different life. I don't believe the impact would have been as great if she could have prepared for a specific life. To me, the best part of her experiences were based upon the spontaneity of fitting in. I don't believe she would have recognized as many aspects of each life if she had been prepared ahead of time. But that's me. While I am a planner, I also adore spontaneity and feel many times those are my best experiences.

I am so glad I read this book and I probably wouldn't have done so without this group read! I really consider it to be inspirational! At least it was for me!

Thanks for all the comments!

A couple of of you have mentioned favorite quotes/passages they marked during the reading. What quotes/passages stuck out to you?

I'm positive i marked some but I'm not sitting in front of my book. Will get back to this one later today. :)

A couple of of you have mentioned favorite quotes/passages they marked during the reading. What quotes/passages stuck out to you?
Here are some to get started. I must leave for doctor appointments. 🙂
I apologize. The indentation didn't work to denote paragraphs/changes in speakers. Don't have time to fix it right now, unfortunately!

I would begin with the epigraph:

I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life.

~Sylvia Plath
(I have never read Sylvia Plath, but I probably should...)

*Perhaps not so much a quote, as just a bit of trivia (previously unknown to me) as Mrs. Elm tells Nora she "hates" the cold and wet:

  

    'Coldness and wetness don't always go together...Antarctica is the driest continent on earth. Technically, it's a desert.'
  

(p 2)

*I love the use of language here and it was such excellent foreshadowing:
(view spoiler)[She knew she should be experiencing pity and despair for her feline friend - and she was - but she had to acknowledge something else. As she stared at Voltaire's still and peaceful expression - that total absence of pain - there was an inescapable feeling brewing in the darkness.

Envy.

(p 7) (hide spoiler)]

*Nora talking with Neil after Voltaire's death:
'It was a lot of pressure.'

'Pressure makes us, though. You start off as coal and the pressure makes you a diamond.'

She didn't correct his knowledge of diamonds. She didn't tell him that while coal and diamonds are both carbon, coal is too impure to be able , under whatever pressure, to become a diamond. According to science, you start off as coal and you end up as coal. Maybe that was the real-life lesson.

She smoothed a stray strand of her coal-black hair up towards her ponytail.

(p 9)

*(more foreshadowing) After Mr. Banerjee informs her he no longer needs her to "collect his pills" for him:
That was it. No one needed her. She was superfluous to the universe.

Once inside her flat the silence was louder than noise. The smell of cat food. A bowl still out for Voltaire, half eaten.

She got herself some water and swallowed two anti-depressants and stared at the rest of the pills, wondering.

(p 20)

*Again, the use of language:
Old philosophy textbooks looked down at her, ghost furnishings from her university days, when life still had possibility. A yucca plant and three tiny, squat potted cacti. She imagined being a non-sentient life form sitting in a pot all day was probably an easier existence.

She sat down at the little electric piano but played nothing. She thought of sitting by Leo's side, teaching him Chopin's Prelude in E Minor. Happy moments can turn into pain, given time.

There was an old musician's cliche, about how there were no wrong notes on a piano. But her life was a cacophony of nonsense. A piece that could have gone in wonderful directions, but now went nowhere at all. (p 21)

* Mrs. Elm shook her head. 'No. Listen carefully.

Between life and death.' She gestured vaguely along the aisle, towards the distance. 'Death is outside."

Well, I should go there. Because I want to die.' Nora began walking.

But Mrs. Elm shook her head. "That isn't how death works.'

'Why not?'

'You don't go to death. Death comes to you.'

Even death was something Nora couldn't seem to do properly, it seemed.

 It was a familiar feeling. This feeling of being incomplete in just about every sense. An unfinished jigsaw of a human. Incomplete living and incomplete dying.

(p 29)

*A metaphor for life?
A person was like a city. You couldn't let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole. There may be bits you don't like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs, but the good stuff makes it worthwhile. (p 48)

Some of my favorite quotes:

“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.��

“Sometimes just to say your own truth out loud is enough to find others like you.��

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.��

“As Thoreau wrote, ‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.��

"I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude." (another Thoreau quote)

“You’re overthinking it.�� ‘I have anxiety. I have no other type of thinking available.��

Many others, but they can give away parts of the plot.

A couple of of you have mentioned favorite quotes/passages they marked during the reading. What quotes/passages stuck out to you?
So far I've underlined a few things:

"A person was like a city. You couldn't let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole "

"Hobbes had viewed memory and imagination as pretty much the same thing"

This made me think about how much I relate to Nora who fixates so much on the past. Sometime I feel like I'm preventing myself from building a new life in adulthood because I like to obsess over college or even high school. Things I do now don't feel as vital and fresh.

"Happy moments can turn into pain, given time."

I really connected to Nora's mental health issues because when in a downswing, this feels very true. You might try to cheer yourself up with happy memories and just end up feeling farther from the good times. This book definitely has a lot of focus on nostalgia and how it can cast a shadow on you. I really appreciate that theme.

Lilith wrote: "Heather wrote: "I'm curious ... do you think this book is magic realism? There's a difference of opinion based on the community book tags.

When I think of magic realism, I think of wallpaper that ..."

This is a helpful way to identify magical realism - thanks for sharing!

I'm late to the party, just starting the book today. You're providing some great discussion questions, Brandy! I'll see if I can get to some of them...

1) How did you hear about this book?

I first noticed this book on the ŷ������ Choice Awards list late last year.

2) Had you read anything by Matt Haig before?

No, I hadn't heard of him before.

3) What were your feelings about Nora when we first meet her?

She reminded me of Eleanor in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

4) Do you have a character in your life that you think would be a good character for your Mrs. Elm?

It's really hard for me to think of specific individuals for this, which makes me sad since I know I've had some great teachers/mentors over the years, but I just can't picture someone in this role. :/

5) Was their a specific timeline you wished Nora would visit?

I think I'm only in the first third or quarter of the book, so I'm not sure how many places she'll end up visiting, but I'm curious how young they'll go. If Nora will be redoing "regrets" she has from decisions she made as a child.

6) They say in the book that not all of the libraries are libraries they could be recordshops or old blockbuster videos, or whatever... What do you think your midnight library would look like?

Oh mine would definitely still be a place of books. Either a library or a bookstore.

7) If you had the opportunity to try out some of your own dream lives, would you?

Hmm on first thought it sounds great, but when I started digging into my "book of regrets" it was kind of sad to think about the mistakes I've made and how different my life would be if I hadn't done those things (I could of course end up in a worse place without those hardships though!), so I might ultimately not want to see that.

And I'm listening to the audio version so I don't have specific passages to add, but I like the ones folks have shared above!

What would your strategy be if you found yourself in a parallel life?
I personally didn't understand why it was important for her to jump into a life without any understanding of the new life. It would've made a lot more sense to go in without knowing anything, but as things come up she "remembers" instead of acting strangely in her new life. I don't know what it added except for shock value when she finds out information about her friends/family. It didn't really seem fair that she got an inauthentic experience with those lives - in those lives she would know what she was talking about (for example, the glaciologist timeline), and that would have given her an actual view of what it would be like to have lived those lives. Instead, she was viewing the lives in the perspective of her true life, which detracts from the experience. It seemed like her lives were easy to navigate through without much research (view spoiler)[because she really only ever looked through her phone (hide spoiler)], but I suppose I would do the same. What else can you do when you're about to go on stage for a TED Talk or a concert?

A couple of of you have mentioned favorite quotes/passages they marked during the reading. What quotes/passages stuck out to you?
“Never underestimate the big importance of small things.�� Much of the book was a little preachy, but I think this was a great takeaway from the book. There are infinite timelines in which a small thing being changed does change something. It makes me think of slowing down and considering the possibilities before acting.

Brandy wrote: "They say in the book that not all of the libraries are libraries they could be record-shops or old blockbuster videos, or whatever... What do you think your midnight library would look like?"

Mine would either be a library or look something like Netflix. Reading and binge-watching TV shows are two of my favorite past times.

Brandy wrote: "Thanks for all the great responses.

What would your strategy be if you found yourself in a parallel life?

I'm sure it was important to the plot that Nora went into these situations blind but I ..."

I agree, I would definitely do more research about my current position, job, relationships, and what not. It seems like some of her decisions were based on where she was at during that part of her life. How could she really know about all the things without staying in that life and doing more research?

Here are some of my favorite quotes/passages:

"Sometimes regrets aren't based on fact at all. Sometimes regrets are just... She searched for the appropriate term and found it. A load of bullshit."

"Sometimes the only way to learn is to live."

"To be part of nature is to be part of the will to live."

"When you stay too long in one place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person."

"But maybe there are no easy paths. There are just paths... Who knows? Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And 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."

(view spoiler)[ "She realized that she hadn't tried to end her life because she was miserable, but because she mad managed to convince herself that there was no way out of her misery." (hide spoiler)]

I've finished it after about four hours of reading. No time wasted. It made me wonder about my existence but at the same time learnt a lot of things.

How did you hear about this book?

Matt Haig's profile.

Had you read anything by Matt Haig before?

Yes. How to stop time, which I absolutely loved.

What were your feelings about Nora when we first meet her?

She just wanted to have a purpose in life and she has many regrets.

Do you have a character in your life that you think would be a good character for your Mrs. Elm?

My father. He's eccentric, caring, and annoying and he's always there when we need him.

Was their a specific timeline you wished Nora would visit?

I wish she visited a life wherein she's genuinely happy and has no worries adapting.

They say in the book that not all of the libraries are libraries they could be recordshops or old blockbuster videos, or whatever... What do you think your midnight library would look like?

Maybe it would also be a library and look like the library in my fourth grade which I almost spent more time in than actually studying. The Midnight Library

Since the month is almost over, and I finished the book back in January, here's my thoughts on the book as a whole.

In general, my preferred version of this kind of book is one where the person goes back to a certain time and gets to make a series of different decisions, and then live through them to see how things would have been different. That isn't this book, obviously.

(view spoiler)[I had issues with the author's choice that she would only change one thing and see what that life would be. For the Australia life, she changed one thing where she decided to move to Australia, but she couldn't change a second thing in that life that would have resulted in Izzy still being alive? For the band life, she changed one thing to still be in the band, but couldn't change other things where her brother was still alive? Life is a series of choices, and limiting the options to making ONE decision different but not being able to change any of those subsequent decisions sits badly with me. I'm sure there were alternate lives where Izzy, her brother or her father were still alive while still moving to Australia, staying in the band or keeping with swimming (was it swimming?).

Also, Mrs. Elm tells her that there's no life options where her own actions would result in her mother being alive. That means there are lives where she is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the death of other family and friends. "You can't have your mom back, but here's a life where you didn't kill your dad like you did in your base life." That's not something you tell someone who was already suicidal. (hide spoiler)]

No favorite quotes because it was a library book and I had to give it back months ago.

How did people feel about the book as a whole?

IS there anything you would have liked more of? Less of?

How did you feel about the journey/decisions made by Nora?

Funny, I didn’t even know that it was part of the monthly group read discussion. I just finished the Audiobook read by Carey Mulligan. I found the story meandering, with a very weak and lengthy middle. I also felt that Mrs.Elm just changed the rules where at first she says Nora Seed can stay in a life that she really ends up loving. And when Nora does find that life and she can feel herself fading away, Then *BAM* Mrs.Elm
Says a different rule.

This book felt more like a pop psychology and half-baked philosophy that two stoners discuss one day, than an actual novel. Nora never felt like a character that we could know, she was just going along according to the plot.

I have never read any Matt Haig before and I’m not sure if I will. I heard of The Midnight Library through a Bookstagram account.

Ilham wrote: "I also felt that Mrs.Elm just changed the rules where at first she says Nora Seed can stay in a life that she really ends up loving. And when Nora does find that life and she can feel herself fading away, Then *BAM* Mrs.Elm
Says a different rule."

I was wondering about that mysellf but I wasn't sure.

Do you feel like Mrs. Elm changed the rules

I wasn't sure if Nora really did want to stay in that life or if (view spoiler)[a lingering feeling that she'd missed out on part of it because it wasn't her true life wasn't always there in the back of her mind (hide spoiler)] keeping her from being fully content in that life

Thanks for facilitating the discussion this month, Brandy!

As a whole, this book for me was decent (3 stars). It held my interest, although I agree with some comments above on how some things could have been better. I think I'm not as used to reading books that feel this light (I know that's strange to say, since it's technically about suicide), but it felt "fluffier" than things I usually read.

I think there were two main things that kept me from enjoying this more. First, I've noticed that since about 80% of the books I read are written by BIPOC authors, books like this stick out as noticeably...white. That kind of connects to my second issue, which is that her various life options (the ones that were a focus of the story at least) were pretty extreme situations. An Olympic swimmer AND a super famous rock star? I think there was another extreme in there I'm forgetting. Just a little too far fetched for me.

I guess my answer to the second question connects to my last point. I liked the pieces where she was doing little things that made a big difference, like helping the kid connect to music (although I can't remember if the kid was white or not; if not that might have gone a bit into some white saviorism territory, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt). So less of the super flashy lifestyles and more of the everyday small things that more people might connect with.

I think at first I thought she was too quick to jump ship when she was trying out different lives, but toward the end I think her choices improved and she had a better perspective on what was important.

Would one of the mods mind adding the book back into the discussion? It puts the ratings from everyone in their respective comment header and I think it was there earlier but must've fallen off somehow.

Thanks so much! I really enjoy seeing what everyone rated the book as I'm reading through the comments.

Lauren wrote: "Thanks for facilitating the discussion this month, Brandy!

As a whole, this book for me was decent (3 stars). It held my interest, although I agree with some comments above on how some things coul..."

I don't think the kid's race was mentioned. I read him as white. But that doesn't mean I didn't miss an indication that he wasn't. I think I head cast almost everybody in this book as white which I hadn't thought about until your comment. One of the band members was non white? And somebody on the svalbard trip? In my head.

Different than my usual pick, but interesting.