6.79k reviews for:

The Life Impossible

Matt Haig

3.52 AVERAGE

jiyounghan33's review against another edition

1.0

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If you expect something like The midnight library, this will disappoint you very much. So boring, childish.

books_n_needles's review

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jasbrignulll's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

rdoskocil's review against another edition

4.0

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Haig has carved a niche for himself as a champion of compassion, which suffuses every page of his stories. His messages are positive, encouraging, and inspiring, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. As a novel, this one is lovely. It checks all the aforementioned boxes.

I did struggle with a few of the story elements. The first half of the book is intriguing and mystical, where the second half reads more like a psilocybin trip followed by a predictable trope of convincing a politician not to let a Big Bad Developer ruin Ibiza. So much potential remained untapped in this story that I felt underwhelmed by the end. It also seems to send a message that yes, life is hard, but you just need something otherworldly to happen and then everything will be fine.

I’m not mad about it. It deserves 4 stars for its wisdom and keen writing. And I quite liked having a 70-year-old woman as a protagonist to follow.

louisa_anne's review against another edition

inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

kconte01's review against another edition

2.5

mysterious medium-paced

amanda_peralta89's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

mkintish's review against another edition

1.5

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This book had an interesting premise but really frustrated me. I’m all for suspending disbelief and embracing magic but

having the main character’s grief, guilt, and depression essentially cured not because of anything she works on but because she is magically gifted telepathy and through reading minds she can now appreciate life again…it was a choice. I just couldn’t appreciate the attempted pay off because her character development didn’t feel earned. 

Plus the message in general felt pretty forced. There was one line that stood out to me as poetic and beautiful but beyond that I wasn’t moved.

stacylazodeiss's review against another edition

3.5

emotional sad medium-paced

ljtreads's review against another edition

5.0

hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

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As someone heading towards retirement age after being stuck in a bit of a rut myself,  loved Grace and her journey to Ibiza and living life. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and it’s one that I’ll think about often