The Midnight Library

The Midnight Library is a fantasy novel by Matt Haig, published on 13 August 2020 by Canongate Books. It was abridged and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 over ten episodes in December 2020.

The novel follows a 35-year-old British woman unhappy in her dead-end life who is given the opportunity to experience lives she might have had if she had made different choices.

Plot
Nora Seed is unhappy with her choices in life as a sixteen-year-old and remains unhappy nineteen years later. Her best friend, Izzy, is in Australia; she has just been fired; her relationship with her brother, Joe, is sour; her music teaching gig is seemingly cancelled; and her cat has just died. Nora feels as if she is useless to the world. During the night, she attempts suicide via overdose, but ends up in a limbo library, known as the Midnight Library, managed by her school librarian, Mrs. Elm. The library is situated between life and death with millions of books filled with stories of her life had she made some different decisions. In this library, with Mrs. Elm's help, she tries to find the life in which she's the most content. However, the only lives she can access are those that are possible, so she cannot find a life where her cat is alive (due to his restrictive cardiomyopathy).

In one possible life, she reunites with her boyfriend, Dan, and finds herself married to him, but it is not the way she expected. Neither of them are happy with their lives, even after accomplishing Dan's dream of owning a pub. She visits a life in which she lives in Australia to be with Izzy. However, Izzy had died in a car crash years earlier. She then tries a potential life in which she becomes an Olympic swimmer. However, she finds it unfulfilling and messes up her TED talk. She sees herself in a world where she is a glaciologist doing research in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic – a very different life from the one she tried to escape, but not necessarily a better choice.

While in Svalbard, she meets another limbo traveler, Hugo Lefevre, who is used to traveling around different lives, and has a brief relationship with him. Her encounter with a polar bear makes her realize she does not really want to die as much as she thought she did. Her next life features her in a successful band, originally formed with Joe. Yet, its glories fade when she finds out he died years ago and that she has broken up with a famous movie star whom she idolized in her root life.

She experiences several other lives with several other people, finally settling on a life where she majors in Philosophy and is married to Ash, a surgeon who bought guitar books from her in her root life, and buried Nora's cat while she was grieving. She also has a daughter named Molly. Through Molly, she learns to love again. This life, by far, seems the best of the lot, but she remains terrified of returning to the Midnight Library. She notices that the boy she tutored in piano, Leo, is now constantly in trouble with the police because there was no piano tutor to help him find something he was passionate about; her neighbor she supplied with medicine does not know her; and she feels completely lost.

She returns to the Midnight Library, despite her resisting, which is collapsing due to her original body dying. Realizing she isn't ready to die, she says a goodbye to Mrs. Elm and finds a book withstanding the destruction. She writes I AM ALIVE inside of it before everything disappears. She wakes up in her original life with a newfound understanding of life, but she is still suffering from the overdose from the night before. She manages to get to the hospital with the help of her neighbor. Her brother comes to visit from London after being notified by the hospital and the two reconcile. She receives a text from Izzy and the two plan a visit together. Nora notices Ash and plans to talk to him sometime, and she resumes her piano lessons with Leo. She finally meets her former librarian in a nursing home and the two play a game of chess.

Reception
According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on 14 critic reviews with 5 being "rave" and 8 being "positive" and 1 being "mixed". In Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (4.10 out of 5) from the site which was based on 5 critic reviews.

The Midnight Library was named a bestseller by The New York Times bestseller, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. Good Morning America selected it as a Book Club Pick.

Booklist and BookPage gave the book a starred review. The Book Reporter and The Arts Desk raved about it. The book also received positive reviews from The New York Times, The Guardian, ZYZZYVA, The Scotsman, The Sunday Times, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly,  and Post Independent.  NPR gave a mixed review.

The book was also included in "Best of" lists from The Christian Science Monitor, Amazon, PureWow, She Reads, Lit Hub, St. Louis Public Radio, and The Washington Post.

The Midnight Library was adapted for radio and broadcast in ten episodes on BBC Radio 4 in December 2020.