Imagine if you could go back and change the decisions you regret. What would that life look like? Would you be happier? That’s what Nora finds out in the Midnight Library by Matt Haig. This book resonated with me so much that I first read it in 2021 and more recently, decided to listen to the audiobook in December 2024.
Nora, full of regrets from a lifetime of letting people down, decides that she’s ready to die. With the loss of her cat, the only person in her life that loved her, Nora feels useless in this world, like she’s just taking up space and thinks maybe she’s better off dead. Her decision lands her in the Midnight Library, a kind of purgatory that lets her explore other lives she could have lived. It’s a chance for her to review what would have happened if she made different decisions along the way, and was able reverse some of her regrets and live out all her childhood dreams. With infinite possibilities and her childhood librarian as her guide, Nora jumps from life to life, hoping to find the “perfect life” that she wants to abandon her current life for and continue living.