The Midnight Library: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel (The Midnight World)
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Description
The 1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year "A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."—The Washington Post The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book. Don’t miss Matt Haig’s latest instant New York Times besteller, The Life Impossible, available now Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place. Read more
Publisher : Penguin Books
Publication date : May 9, 2023
Language : English
Print length : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 0525559493
ISBN-13 : 98
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.06 x 0.79 x 7.75 inches
Part of series : The Midnight World
Best Sellers Rank: #336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Science Fiction Crime & Mystery #2 in Time Travel Fiction #13 in Literary Fiction (Books)
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Paperback
I thought this book was very cute. If you’re looking for something that is a light read, but also tells a good story and has a good meaning, I highly recommend. It drags on a little in the middle, but the end I really loved. I also liked the concept of alternative realities. Very wholesome and actually helped with my indecisiveness. I would give it 4.5 stars.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2025 by Annie
Format: Hardcover
"The Midnight Library" is one of those books that really "hit home" the older I get and the more regrets I have. What if there was a way to undo your regrets? What would your life look like? This story follows a MFC named Nora who gets the opportunity to see how her life could be if she had made different choices. Matt Haig is a talented author that brings out deep emotions in his readers. If you have ever read any of his other books, "The Midnight Library" has the same kind of emotional depth as his other works. I ordered the hardcover and it was delivered in perfect condition. No bent or dented edges, which seems to be rare from amazon book deliveries in my personal experience. It is a fairly quick read being only 288 pages. For a book that is not my genre of choice, I found it to be a pretty nice read.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2025 by Jessika
Format: Kindle
What a fun book and nicely written. I really enjoyed the story and the parallel message. It’s an easy read and the ending doesn’t disappoint.
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2025 by Peter C.
Format: Paperback
I will be honest, i had trouble getting through this, even though the premise was good. The writing itself was very simple and just not my style but maybe others will like it. The messaging was fine (I don't want to spoil it), but also felt a little pat bordering on cliché. The ending, in general, was better than other parts. Despite the philosophical nature of the book, I would not say that the characters were especially well developed. They were more like caricatures of characters. As far as reading age, it was at an easy reading level - middle school, but the topic felt like something meant for someone older.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2025 by Budgiegirl
Format: Kindle
With much wisdom, this existential meditation, the quantum multiverse, is a compelling, pleasant story. Intelligent, emotive, thought provoking. A wonderful, introspective novel.
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2025 by Jeff Lacy
Format: Kindle
The Midnight Library is a lovely and easy-to-read magical realism story. Designed to be life-affirming, it's well written and clever and accomplishes what it set out to do. This book is a quick read and easy to enjoy.
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2025 by DizzyRose
Format: Hardcover
So many options can be pursued when evaluating a book. Did the author create believable and consistent characters? Did the author manufacture vivid scenes and detailed locations? Did the author include Easter eggs for the reader to find, anagrams of names (like in the Series of Unfortunate Events) or a play on words or an alliteration or metaphors or similes or puns? Did the author include references to real world events or people or places that the reader can connect to? Did the author explore a familiar concept in a new way? Did the author give the characters words to say that connect with the reader and their view of life? Did the author overuse actual dialogue or internal monologue to explain the story instead of relying upon actual action. There are so many options for the reviewer, just as there are so many options for the main character in this book. Nora Seed finds herself in a library at the stroke of midnight, with lots of books around her and a librarian from her childhood, Mrs. Elm. Each book represents a different version of Nora’s life, a life of joys and sorrows, people and places, events and tragedies that spawned from a single choice, a decision, or in the case of this girl so full of regrets, something that didn’t happen because she didn’t make that choice. Of course, there is the root life, the life that Nora remembers living, a life full of disappointments and settling, that led to her attempted suicide and her visits to the Midnight Library. A moment in between, where she isn’t alive and in her body yet she isn’t dead (with the finality that means for self and others). And there are all of those other lives that she now gets to explore, lives where she doesn’t remember any of that Nora’s life, but finds herself plopped there with a kid yet no memory of this child, or as a wife with no memory of sleeping with her husband, or as a glaciologist with no memory of what such a scientist knows, or as a pop star with no memory of the words to popular songs, or as a pub owner with no memory of what to do when closing. Lives, but without the memories that led her there. An interesting thread running throughout the book is that of Hugo, another slider who explores his own lives. Hugo and Nora meet up several times, though find that the other isn’t what they want and each chooses to go back to their own terminal, hers a library and his a video store. I expected them to meet up at the end, as they had such a powerful connection through their sliding, both aware of themselves and of others, but no. it wasn’t to be. I’m not disappointed, just wondering if such a possibility exists, and if I will get this chance one day. And I wonder how Hugo arrived at this point, if his was also a suicide, and if it only happened to suicides or lives so filled with regrets. A question I still have is about the character of Mrs. Elm (for Nora) or the uncle (for Hugo) and the place where these shamans or guides or facilitators resided. Both sliders found themselves in an in-between place with a familiar character as the trusted one, not someone who used them but someone who in real life helped them find their own way. A good person. An older person who helped at a pivotal time in their life. I find it cool that the author (Matt Haig) crafted a god-like character, not one who superimposes her/his will on you but one who is limited in what they can do by the physics of the world (a library or a video store) they are trapped in. Not all-powerful. Not desiring worship. Not governed by human impulses (power and sex). But a personal god whose sole interest was in the needs and wants of a single person, a much better concept (to me) than the invented gods of the modern world that seem interested in humanity as a whole (and worship and knee-bending and blind obedience and all of that stupidity). If we could wipe away all of the old gods and create a new god for each person today, this would be the kind of god I would like to think about. Though there is that question about universality, and whether everything we think and feel isn’t just arising from our own experiences, including all of this god-talk. I enjoyed finding things in this book. Like the title, on page 31. And the name of the band, a variation of the Kurt Vonnegut classic, Slaughterhouse Five. And the name of the music shop that sounds like the idea behind all of the lived lives in this book, String Theory. And the references to Bedford and Pottersville, connecting readers to the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”. And life-fright being similar to stage-fright. And the role of chess in the book, from its beginning to its end, something that used to be a major part of my own life as an educator. And glitches in the library that stemmed from Nora thinking differently about death than she did in her root life. And I had to look up “grasshopper suicide”, because the character told me to, and how many forms of life there are (almost nine million), and Frank Ocean (“Moon River” was awesome). Another interesting concept is that of time. Time doesn’t pass for Nora in the real world as she pulls out numerous books from the library shelves, some exploring for a few minutes, others for hours or days or months. Yet the clock never moves past 12:00 in slide after slide, life after life, universe after universe, until her thinking changes in such a way that she no longer regrets the choices she made in her root life. And then the clock starts ticking and Mrs. Elm warns her that she must do just one thing in order to survive, pick that one book, and, wait, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it gets to 00:03:48. If you want to know what happens to Nora, then read this book. It is really good and worth your time. And if you are the philosophical type (as I am), then keep a notepad and pen nearby so that you can write down the interesting thoughts and ideas that flow from the mind of Nora Seed, the questions she ponders, the truths she shares with the world. And I will end on a final thought, one found on page 137, about life and what it is: “…acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty.” Something to think about.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2021 by imaloserdude
Format: Kindle
It's been a while since I enjoyed a book so much. It has depth, makes you think while entertaining at the same time.
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2025 by Carolina Donkersloot