A review by wizardingwisteria
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

emotional reflective sad fast-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? Yes

3.75

This was easily a five star read when it started.  I was so captivated by this book.  I loved the idea of the midnight library and how it operated.  I enjoyed watching Nora experience her other lives.  But I started to lose interest around the halfway point.  Specifically when she runs into Hugo.  To be honest, I didn't find him that interesting and he gets virtually no development.  It seems like he only exists so the author can flesh out Nora's library, but even then Hugo feels totally irrelevant.

Towards the end this book got ridiculously repetitive.  There was one entire chapter that lists every life Nora accessed in the library.  Every single career path, relationship choice, every little thing.  I get it.  The library is infinite.  Nora explored a lot of paths.  I felt like I was being held hostage by the author.  If anything that chapter exposed how unserious the writing style was.  There was a chance to inject some really powerful prose about the infinite number of lives and choices that Nora had access too but instead its "Nora was [career]" what felt like hundreds of times

The last eighty or so pages were a drag for me to get through.  The ending  was satisfying enough, but the pace slammed its brakes to a crawl to get there.

Certainly an interesting read, but not one I can see myself going through again.
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