The Midnight Library follows Nora, a woman struggling with depression when she decides that life isn’t worth living anymore. She finds herself at the aforementioned library, a place where time stands still exactly at midnight, where each of the infinite books shows the different lives she could have lead had she made different choices large or small. Ultimately she must choose: life or the trajectory that got her to the library in the first place. 

I was not a fan of this book. Spoilers ahead. While it did have some good quotes and interesting moments, it felt a bit heavy handed with the Thoreau quotes and optimism at the end. It very much glosses over and overly simplifies how difficult life is after a suicide attempt. I also was a bit annoyed that the best life she experienced in the library

also happened to be the most heteronormative: married, rich, has a kid, a dog, etc.

If this is what you want in life there isn’t anything wrong with that, but we didn’t get many indicators in the book that this is what she wanted. It also doesn’t escape me that many of the lives were what others wanted for her or from her

swimming for her dad, the rockstar life for her brother

, but even in the life that gets her to decide she actually wants to live she’s still living for others. When she sees

her student in trouble with the cops she realizes that if she hadn’t taught him piano he would have gone down a different path.

While this is meant to be inspiring, and this along with the example of her neighbor can be, it also means that she’s still putting others and their lives and happiness above her own. All of this together read to me as

single woman with cat=bad, married mother with kid and dog=good.

 
Again, there’s nothing wrong with wanting this, but you’re telling me if all the lives she lived, everything she learned, this is what finally convinced her to live? I very much felt like this was a “men writing women” situation where this must be the only true way for a woman to find fulfillment and happiness.