The Midnight Library - review
For April, the Novel Thoughts book club decided to pick up The Midnight Library, which I was so excited about! Let me tell y’all, this book got me THINKING and REFLECTING, all in a good way but whew!
A little background on what The Midnight Library is about… the main character Nora Seed finds herself between life and death, where she appears to be in a library, but not just any library, this one is unique for her. Upon arrival, she quickly learns that she will remain at the library as long as the clock remains at midnight. While she is there she is free to explore multiple different lives that she could have lived if she made a new choice. No matter how big or small that decision is. She simply needed to tell the librarian the type of life she would like to exist in and the librarian, Mrs. Elm, would go and find Nora the book. Once in her hand, as she begins to read the first line of the book she is instantly pulled into her new reality.
Ultimately, when you think about it, in every choice or path we decide to take, there is always another version of ourselves that would have chosen differently, and that there alone opens up an infinite amount of other opportunities and lives to explore. The question is, would you want to see how your life would have been if you made a separate decision? Remember it does not have to be anything big, it could be something as small as going out for coffee or tea. Any life you could imagine living, honestly.
Now that you have a bit of a summary of the storyline, could you understand why this novel had me in a chokehold and my mind moving, reflecting on the many what-ifs? There was a particular quote in the book that resonated with me that I thought I would share, “To be part of nature was to be part of the will to live”. Personally speaking, I feel it would be really fun and entertaining to explore and travel through different lives, different versions of myself, simply to see how each event or pattern would have ended up. But if I can keep it honest, much like Nora, I feel I would not quite belong in any of the lives enough to stay in. Because through all the highs and lows of life, no matter the dimension I am in, I feel I would still have to go through all the same lessons, perhaps in another way. So honestly, at the end of the multidimensional jumping, I would love to keep on living and growing in the parrel that I exist in today! There is so much beauty in being present and grateful for what I have and who I am.
Anyway, I would love to hear/read what you all think of the book if you read it, and for those who have not, will you? Let me know your thoughts below and as always, keep exploring YOU! :)
