A review by margesyarf
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Jilly-style review incoming…. despite its flaws, I couldn’t seem to stop reading this book, and a lot of its ideas stayed with me even when I did put it down. I get a little annoyed by the trope of the protagonist who studies philosophy – it feels like a cop-out for the author, and although it makes sense with Nora’s character, Haig often just quotes philosophers instead of using his own fiction to allow Nora to discover these truths on her own. At times I felt like he wanted to write a philosophy thesis but wrote a fiction novel instead. In this sense I feel like the book overexplains itself a little bit. There were whole sections, especially at the end, that I think could’ve been cut. It’s such a cool premise for a book, and had the opportunity to be so much more whimsical and magical and enjoyable to read than it was. But I’ll say that there were a few specific moments I was surprised resonated so deeply with me. Midnight Library is an interesting exercise in gratitude (“want means lack.” “death is the opposite of possibility.”) and reminds us that life relies on us to experience it.