Book Review #22: The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

Review of The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library is a thought-provoking novel about regret, choices, and the lives we imagine we could have lived. The story follows Nora Seed, who finds herself in a mysterious library where every book contains a different version of her life based on a choice she could have made differently. She is given the chance to undo her regrets by entering these alternate lives and seeing what would have happened if she had made different decisions.

What I loved most about the book was the idea of actually being able to change the things you regret. Nora gets to go back and try different versions of her life—changing decisions, fixing mistakes, and exploring opportunities she wishes she had taken. I found this especially interesting because I think most people have things they wish they could undo or choices they sometimes wonder about. Seeing Nora actually get the chance to change them made me reflect on a lot of things I could have done differently. It was fascinating to see that changing one decision doesn't just fix one regret; it creates an entirely different life, with its own problems and unexpected consequences.

I also loved how the book slowly changes Nora's understanding of regret. At first, she thinks that if she can just find the right life—the one where she made all the "correct" choices—she'll finally be happy. But every life teaches her something different. A choice that she regrets in her original life might have led to something wonderful, but it might also have caused completely different problems. This made me think about how easy it is to look back at our lives and imagine that one different decision would have solved everything, when we can never actually know what would have happened.

If I had to criticize anything, some of the alternate lives feel more interesting than others, and the message can sometimes become a little repetitive. The book also explains some of its ideas quite directly, rather than allowing the reader to discover them completely on their own. However, I think the central idea is strong enough to make up for this.

The impact of The Midnight Library comes from making something most of us only imagine—undoing our regrets—into an actual possibility. Watching Nora repeatedly change her past made me think about all the little choices that have brought me to where I am now. More importantly, it made me question whether I would really want to undo them if I had the chance. The book doesn't say that we shouldn't have regrets; instead, it shows that regrets are part of understanding ourselves and the lives we have chosen. I finished the book thinking about the things I would change, the things I wouldn't, and how different my life might have been if I'd made even slightly different choices.