KellyAnn McCarthy
Creative Writer, Playwright, & Journalist
Kelly's Bookcase - Review
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
"You don't have to understand life. You just have to live it."
-- Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
First Impressions
The Midnight Library is an in-depth journey of emotional health, survival, and hope. If we could all walk through many doors of reality, where would we go? Or is self awareness the key to our own journey? Matt Haig dares the reader to imagine one's own life with the same creativity he's designed his fictional world.
Mission
First Impressions
From the first paragraph of The Midnight Library I am brought into Matt Haig's magical world. Immediately, I was taken with the vulnerability of his protagonist Nora Seed, and how a library has become like a welcoming shelter. Beginning in chapter one, there is a palpable kind of sadness about home.
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Though I did not see a Trigger Warning (TW) at the front of the book, I appreciate that the subject, thoughts of suicide, is alluded to early on, so anyone with sensitivity issues on the subject can choose to disengage and bow out.
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That Haig has publicly spoken about his own mental health issues, and suicidal thoughts, makes this read especially interesting. His ability to share the rawness of Nora is both courageous and generous.
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I also appreciate the delicate foreshadowing in The Midnight Library. That the music shop Nora's been working at is called String Theory, tells a lot about where the narrative is going. From book blurbs and even the book's jacket, I suspected elements of quantum theory within the narrative to explain the metaphysical aspects of the novel.
