You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”
Hello, friends! Thank you for being here today, and welcome to another book review post. This was one of my May reads, and it certainly affected me in a way that I wasn’t expecting at all. It has been on my shelves for the longest time, and I had the physical copy in my own language. Maybe this was why I kept not reading it since I often find translations very bad. However, I have to say that the translation was perfect, and it was a successful publication. Of course, you’re not here to read about how good the translation is, so let me walk you through my emotions and everything that is happening in this book.
The book starts with a quote. It talks about a library which is between life and death and provides you with the endless possibilities that you have on that little line that you are standing between the end or perhaps I should say the new beginning, and your existing life.
Our main character is a middle-aged woman called Nora Seed. In a matter of hours, she ends up losing everything that she considers as the things that keep her alive or make her life worthy to live. She has so many regrets that she carries around and she decides to end it all. She decides that nothing is worth living anymore and cannot find the power to continue this life that she considers as complete “regret”. I am nobody to judge because I am aware that everybody’s paying is hard for themselves so I completely understood what she felt and where she came from making this decision.
What she doesn’t expect to happen is that she finds herself in a library which is filled with endless books. Books fill the shelves and books cover all her sight. A familiar face shows up and she realises that she is Mrs. Elm, the librarian she cared for so much during her childhood. The Midnight Library works like this: everything that Nora can see is the symbol of the lives that she could have. Lives that she can choose to move on. Later in the book, this is explained by one of these characters who also walks between lives like multiple universes. She has a chance to choose a life that she likes the most and continue living it. She realises the regrets she has and her journey actually starts right between life and death.
She moves on from life to life removing each regret she owns and the chances she could have throughout her life by simply changing a small thing. Like a butterfly effect. A single change in her decisions gives her endless opportunities in life. As the book progresses she realises the life she had and as she gets rid of the regrets she kept carrying around on her shoulders all her life starts losing their pain.
In one life she is an Olympic swimmer, and in another life, she ends up marrying someone and has a child. One life she is completely lost after losing her best friend and the other she is actually living on top of the world with polar bears. She tries and finds herself so lost although she has this chance to choose whichever life she wishes for.
I shouldn’t tell you about the end because till the end, I was thinking that she would land in a life and accept that this other Nora had done a great job, and then, take her place.
It reminded me of how little things we consider regret. It reminded me that every decision that we make not only directly affects our lives but also, how it forges us to become the person that we are. I thought a lot about my own life and my own regrets and all my decisions that I consider regretful. Of course, a reconciliation for a person doesn’t happen very quickly, however, I will never have a Midnight Library of my own and I will never have the option to choose a land in the life that I want. And even if I had one, I doubt that I would take the place of another version of “me” and be happy. I don’t think that I would fit in it simply.
How lucky we are to breathe. How lucky we are to feel the wind and taste the saltiness of the ocean. How lucky we are to see the colours and embrace the people we love. And although some of us have less than others, it is hard to say that it makes us lesser in any way. At the end of the book, I was so thankful for that. I was so thankful that I had my health and I was working on myself actively as I kept living. I finally understood all the importance and the rave about to book. I wish I wasn’t so late but maybe this was what it meant to be.
Stay safe, I will see you in my next post. 🌸
Luster of Books 