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288 pages, Hardcover
First published August 13, 2020
Quote removed due to complaint that I quote too much.
Quote removed due to complaint that I quote too much.
quote can be found on GR Quotes page here
Quote removed due to complaint that I quote too much.
Quote removed due to complaint that I quote too much.
Quote removed due to complaint that I quote too much.
Quote removed due to complaint that I quote too much.
Quote removed due to complaint that I quote too much.
"That is just me. I add nothing. I am wallowing in self-pity."
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga. It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out. But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy. We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
While I admit I don’t actively pursue parallel universes kind of books on one hand, and on the other, the main reason why I read this book is that I was choosing the best fiction this year (to vote in the GR awards), I was actually looking forward to it. Most of my friends on GR gave it 5 glowing stars. A book beloved by the majority... I had a high chance of enjoying it. Sadly, I didn’t.
First, it was boring. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator wasn’t the best, honestly. Not that her voice was annoying but it was kind of monotone. It certainly didn’t help either that I was listening to Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine at the same time, in which the narrator was so animated reading the book.
I also found all of Nora’s revelations and enlightenment typical. Like sure I already know that. The ending was also painfully predictable from the start. So when you can guess where the book is going, everything in between becomes not so interesting anymore, especially if you don’t care about the main character. Unfortunately, I found Nora dull. She wasn’t interesting as the main character and I couldn’t relate nor care about her and empathise with her story. I can’t believe she was this multitalented in fields that aren’t related whatsoever to each other. She could’ve been an athlete, a scholar or a musician. All successful. All are based on life decisions. I also think that she had the privilege of choosing such different options. Many don’t. I don’t mean by that the book of regrets but rather focusing on a particular career path from the start. For example, many parents don’t nurture their children’s interests like music or gymnastics for several reasons maybe they can’t afford it or they just don’t care. But Nora had so many options.
Luckily, the book was short. I also didn’t hate anything about it, hence the 2-star rating. But at the same time, I can’t name anything I liked. Maybe one of the lives, in particular, was more intriguing than the rest because of the two characters we met and.. the concept. It didn’t help that the book got repetitive sometimes. The premise was much more promising than the book itself. The “message” was also pretty plain obvious. Yet many liked The Midnight Library, however. So it might be more of a “me and not you” kind of book.
But let me tell you this: if you don’t find the parallel universes interesting to read about in stories, don’t read this novel. Don’t be fooled with “LIBRARY. MIDNIGHT LIBRARY. BOOOOOKS.” The library is just more of a metaphor. Most of the events in this book take place in the real world. And unless you’re interested in kind of self-help books (or motivational ones), don’t read this novel either. Because it’s more about what Nora discovered about herself and life, of course, by dealing with/trying to escape from her regrets.
But then again, the majority liked this book so you might too and it's simply not my cup of tea. Yet, it was a dreadfully boring.
Life has just gotten to the point where it's overwhelming and all-encompassing and above all, Nora can't see a possible situation where it gets better.![]()
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“Aisles and aisles of bookshelves, reaching up to the ceiling and branching off from the broad open corridor. Books were everywhere. The shelves really did seem to go on forever, straight and long to the far off horizon. There were no title and names adorning the spines of the books.”
“You don’t go to death, but the death comes to you”
“This is the wrong life. It is really, really, really wrong. Take me back. I do want to avenge. Take me back to the library.
In the cosmic order of things, there is no rejection only redirecrtion.”
“The thing that looks the most ordinary might end up being the thing that leads you to victory.”