Love of literacy: book of the week

Corner Brook bibliophile recommends … The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Do you ever wonder what your life might have been like if you had decided to take a different path?

What if you had followed your childhood dream of becoming a ballerina or a brain surgeon? Or, what if you had said yes instead of no to the shy boy wo asked you out for coffee once when you were in college?

If you could go back in time and remake some of your past decisions, would you do anything differently? How significantly would those changes affect your life?

While most of us live with regrets, whether they be big or little, rarely do we get the chance to undo any of them. Norah Seed got just that opportunity … but it took her almost dying to get it.

This book starts off dark. Really dark. There’s talk of depression, anxiety, suicide, and other not- so-nice thoughts.

But don’t let that discourage you from finishing this book. The story is about so much more than darkness. It’s thoughtprovoking, magical, and ultimately an uplifting read.

Norah Seed is unhappy with her life. Very unhappy. Depressed, actually. And because she’s so depressed, she can’t imagine ever being able to climb out of the black hole that is her depression. She decides to end it all. Fortunately for Norah, she finds herself, for lack of a better word, in the in-between. And, between Norah’s life and death, there is a library. Within that library, the shelves go on forever and every book provides a chance to try another life she could have lived – to see how things could have been different if she had made other choices. If Norah can find the right book, the right regret to undo, she will be saved.

Nora explores numerous books in the library which allows her to live many of the lives she’s missed out on. She searches for a life in which she is happier than in her “root life.” As readers, we follow Norah as she tries her hand at being a pub owner, a glaciologist, a rock star, an Olympic athlete, and many more.

It’s fun to watch Norah navigate these other lives without any past knowledge of that particular life. And, it’s interesting to see her get all the things she always thought would make her happy only to realize the grass is not always greener. As soon as she’s disappointed with a life, she ends up back in the library to choose another, and another, and another.

Will Norah ever find a happy life? Will she ever get to leave the library for good? Will she choose to live or die? You’ll have to read The Midnight Library to find out.

Love of literacy: book of the week is a biweekly feature where The West Coast Wire checks in with Corner Brook bibliophile Cathy Regular for her latest book recommendation available at the Corner Brook Public Library.