TW: Suicide

The Midnight Library is a book about a 19 year old woman named Nora Seed, who is suicidal. She wants to discover what it’s like to live in the gray area between life and death. She enjoys playing chess in the Hazeldene library with the librarian Mrs. Elm, who serves as an amazing supporting character, encourages Nora to leave her hometown and take up glaciology. A while later Nora discovers that her father has passed away from a heart attack. The book then jumps 19 years ahead and Nora just can’t catch a break. Within the span of two days she loses her cat, her brother visits town and ignores her, she gets fired from her job. She is met with many intriguing opportunities and yet she turns all of them down, like canceling her wedding two days prior, turning down the opportunity to live in Australia with her best friend. She writes a suicide note and overdoses. She wakes up in a state that is in between life and death, and to her surprise it’s a library with what seems like an image of Mrs. Elm. Nora struggles with the concept of being in this library that is between life and death but Mrs. Elm encourages her to look around. Each book in the library represents an alternate version of her life, one where she marries her fiance for example. At the end of the book, Nora learns how valuable life is. In order to get out of the Midnight Library she would need to reconnect with loved ones through love and kindness. 

This was a wonderful book to read, though it was depressing it sent a very significant message. It was hard to read at times because it was so real, the feelings of depression and emptiness, there was a heaviness to the beginning of the book because you have to acknowledge that there are suicidal people in the world and they deserve to gain hope and happiness. It was also difficult to read at times because Nora simply wanted to die, even when she was in the library she was confused and really just wanted to die.  In the second half of the book I was very intrigued, a library where every book represents an alternate life seems like an incredible experience if you experience it without the fear of it crumbling by midnight. I think the fact that it crumbles at midnight reminds Nora and the reader that there is so much opportunity in your life but that there is a limited amount of time. I feel like this is really significant because if you are met with an opportunity, you only have a limited amount of time to accept which perhaps Nora did not realize when she was suicidal and desparate. I wouldn’t recommend this book if the topic is sensitive to you, but I found it an interesting read.

-Tatiana