“This is a book that I wish everyone would read; however, I know that not everyone is ready for it, or willing to read it.”
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First things first
This year we decided to change things a bit, concerning reading picks at Book Club. We won’t pick them by vote, or by genre. This year we will announce a surprise book each month, as we did the first year of our Club. That way we hope to get higher expectancy from the members. Change is good sometimes.
We picked The Midnight Library because it comes highly recommended from many angles. I read the synopsis and thought it was a suitable reading to start the New Year.
Synopsis
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library, which contains an infinite number of books, each one has the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the change to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
Personal opinion
This is a book that I wish everyone would read; however, I know that not everyone is ready for it, or willing to read it.
In life, we all go through a different process, and we learn valuable lessons on the way according to our experiences. Sometimes people (myself included), even though they stumble over the same stone many times, they still haven’t been able to accept the message, and continue walking on the same path, repeating the same outcome… As if they do not want to accept that there is a world of possibilities in other roads; or worse, they feel that they are not worthy of those new roads.
Nora’s case is something like that; she has been through so many tragedies, that she’s reached to a point where nothing interests her any more. She simply does not want to live anymore, and it doesn’t matter how many possibilities the Midnight Library gives her, she doesn’t feel happy in any of them.
I cannot tell you that I hated Nora, or that her negativism drove me crazy. What I felt about her was a deep concern about the way she sees life, and even though I wanted her to understand what she needed as soon as possible, I knew that it was a personal process and that it was going to take time.
The Midnight Library is a reading that makes you reflect about what really matters in order to keep living, what you must really focus on. That is why I loved this book.
While is true that, with this plot the author could have narrated a story much more dramatic, deep, scientific and intense, I think that he wanted to convey a message from a Psychological point of view; that’s why the reading is light, and could actually be taken as a therapeutic session.
I cried at the end of the reading, it wasn’t a cry of tragedy, they were tears of relief and acceptance.
A little ending note
The Midnight Library is a light reading, fluent, and easy to understand; it will make you reflect about a few things, and it will make you feel many emotions.
If you read this book, I would love to read your opinion.
Xoxo,
MJ
Other book reviews on my Blog:
The girl who was taken, by Charlie Donlea
A recipe for love, by Nicola Yeager
Mi terapia es escribir. Me desahogo escribiendo sobre la vida, mis aficiones, aprendizajes, bienestar, historias, libros y recetas. También me hace feliz conectarme contigo.