The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Monday, July 6, 2026--San Antonio

In my opinion, the very popular book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is not a good novel.  It has contradictions and and is not very logical (even if one believes in the theory it is based upon).  I spent most of my time reading it trying to determine why it was so popular.  But I think I know.  People may think they are reading a good novel, but instead they are reading a rather clever self-help book.  They overlook the problems with it as a novel and let the book guide themselves through analyzing their own lives.  They think about their own regrets.  They think about the dreams they have abaondoned.  They think about how unhappy they are rather than what they can do to improve their life experience.  The book guides the reader through the failures experienced by Nora that have led to her suicide effort.  It provides a framework for analyzing what her life might have been if she had made different choices along the way by actually temporarily living the alternative to see if it is better or not.  As she is doing that, the reader is likely reasoning through whether the alternative choices they might have made themselves and what would be good/what could go wrong under those circumstances.  By the end, the book is guiding the reader to make a decision about what they could do to better appreciate the life that they have have been living so far so that they can make the future better.  See, it is a fairly good self-help guide.  But as a novel, I give it only 3 stars out of 5.