The Midnight Train by Matt Haig

Tuesday, Aug. 25. 2026--San Antonio

I recently read the preceding novel to this second of two books.  I did not like that first novel much.  The Midnight Train by the same author, Matt Haig, is a much better book.  There is a common theme in both books; one based on wanting to live a better life.  In this one the story is about a man who has great regrets.  He has died and is being taken on a ride to review his whole life with the promise of entering eternity at the end of the ride.  During the ride, he sees flashes of events passing and watches a photograph on the wall of the train car of himself aging in relation to the time of the events.  He is being guided by a woman he knew as a child and has been dead herself for many years. She has volunteered from within her eternity to guide him to his own.  Occasionally, the train stops at the more important events in his life so he can observe and, therefore, relive them.  Unfortunately, the most important events in anyone's life include both the best ones and the worst ones.  So the train ride is both positive and punishing.  During each stop, he is actually observing rather than reliving each event, so he gets to notice things that he hadn't in real life--aspects of events he hadn't noticed and actions byboth him and others and their reactions to them.  He knows from the beginning that he has made mistakes in life and regrets them and their consequences, but observing these events allows him to start to notice when wrong turns were taking place--when he made poor decisions and when those he loved reacted negatively to them.  He wishes he had lived his life differently and begins questionning whether it is too late to do anything about it.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.