“We only need to be one person.
We only need to feel one existence.
We don’t have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.” – Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
I very rarely trust my father’s opinion when it comes to books (he likes to read a lot of non-fiction biographies, think the 800-some page book about John D Rockefeller Titan), but I have never been so glad to go against my usually very strict rules about following my father’s reading advice. I distinctly remember the first time he told me about this book- we were on vacation at the beach and we were sitting in the living room of our rental house reading, as we do sometimes. My dad looked up like he was going to say something, and then he just handed me his kindle and told me to read until the end of the chapter. I’ve mentioned before that I am a sucker for excellent writing, and let me tell you, at that moment, Matt Haig’s writing hit me like a truck.
The possibility that there are an infinite amount of lives that we did not get to live because of the decisions we have made along our journey is an astounding concept. Matt Haig took that idea and made it into something even more – creating the Midnight Library. A place between life and death that contains a book of a life that could have been based upon every move we have ever made in our lives. The directory is one large book that lists every single regret you have ever felt in your life, and to choose the life you believe to be perfect for you, you have to choose to reverse a decision you regret.
That is what Nora Seed must do. She visits life after life and revisits regret after regret in an attempt to find the life where she truly belongs. As Nora is suspended in between life and death, she has the ability to face the harsh realities of her other lives and search for what is really fulfilling in life and what exactly makes life worth living.
And with that, it’s time for me to present you with the playlist of songs I’ve selected for this book!
This song, has this melancholy feel that reminds me so intensely of this book. It’s telling a story, but it isn’t overly joyous or sad, it feels like a rainy day with nothing to do.
Although I failed to mention it in my book description (due to the fact that this would be a very long review if I went over every life Nora lived in the book), there is a life in which she meets another person working their way through their own midnight library, and this song reminded me of their brief time together.
This one may seem like a bit of a stretch, but I imagine this song as Nora looking at herself in all of the lives she’s lived and wanting to just hold herself and say that it’s okay to not have archived everything anyone has ever wanted you to do.
This is one of those songs that fits the vibe and also has a line that made me think about Nora: “Well I’ve been afraid of changin’ ’cause I’ve built my life around you”. Nora is afraid of change in her first life a for a lot of reasons, but the main one is her being scared to move from her comfort zone.
This last song was a very intentional choice. I could have gone with the original version sung played by the Beatles in 1966, but instead I chose this version sung and composed by Cody Fry in 2022. If I was choosing this song purely for lyric choice I would have gone with the Beatles, but the way Cody Fry composed and covered this song makes it sound like adventure. It sounds like running along a misty mountainside trying to complete a mission you were sent on by a mysterious prophet. That is what the Midnight Library feels like – Nora trying to complete her life and along the way she earns an infinite amount of wisdom.
“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.” – Matt Haig, The Midnight Library