Book Club Recap: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library prompted quite a discussion—one more contentious than I expected going into our meeting.

I also didn’t expect to find myself in the minority, but there’s a first time for everything. Here’s what our interesting discussion yielded!

Our May book club pick definitely divided our members into Lovers, Haters, and Nitpickers—the vast majority expressing positive views about this book, supported by almost 300,000 raving reviews on Goodreads. Personally, I didn’t hate the book, but I did see space for improvement. Even though I’m trained as a lawyer and spent years trying cases—not necessarily fighting for the side I believed in—it is still a struggle to convey opinions I don’t share in a just way, but I will attempt to do so to the best of my ability. I hope my recap will capture the diversity of our members’ opinions on this book.

So let’s begin!

• The high-concept premise

In one thing we were unanimous: everyone loved the premise of this book—a library between life and death where you get to choose to undo any of the regrets you’ve had throughout your life, and see how life would’ve unfolded had you made different choices to the ones you’ve actually made.

That’s what’s referred to (in the publishing industry) as a high concept; being able to summarize the concept of a book in a single sentence, with an idea that sounds fresh and new and stands out to what’s been done before.

I’m sure there are plenty of books out there with themes of undoing regrets and getting a do-over after near-death experience (I myself have read quite a few). What’s fresh about this premise is the Midnight Library; that you get to choose from the books that show your life as it might have been had you made different choices—and that you get to slide into those lives and try them on for size.

As for the execution of this premise, the opinions were polarized. The majority felt that the author had followed through with the premise and written a riveting and compelling book. But there were some of us who felt (in words of one of our members) that this book might have been outstanding in the hands of a more capable writer. Now, this is not to say that Matt Haig is not a capable writer—quite a few of our members who’ve read his previous work had attested to his ability to write quality fiction, but there were also those among them who felt that the quality of this book didn’t measure up to his previous work.

Personally, it seemed to me that the book was rushed. It could have used a couple more drafts, some fine-tuning, deeper consideration on how to show certain things… This often happens with established writers: they’re expected to spit the new book out into the world every couple of years or so. And so they often don’t have the time for that fine-tuning. But it’s that filigree work that can really turn a good book into a masterpiece. And this is where the minority of us found ourselves disappointed: it’s not that this was a bad book at all. It was that it had potential to be outstanding, one-in-a-generation type of book (think, Memoirs of a Geisha, or Crowdads—books that define a certain era), but that opportunity was missed.

• Literary, Upmarket, or Commercial?

I usually put this bullet point at the end of my recaps, but this time, I’m putting it next to the high-concept premise—because the discussion about the genres ties into the fact that book is a high-concept one. When I asked the members how they would classify this book, all three genres were mentioned—literary, upmarket, and commercial. Usually, we’ll have members be on the fence between two genres when classifying a book (either literary vs. upmarket, or upmarket vs. commercial) but we’ve never had members mention all three genres when classifying a book.

This is because the premise is high concept so the book has a literary feel to it (or better said, this is what most of us expected). But when it comes to writing itself, it seems pretty commercial in execution. Sure, there are topics that give it depth (regrets, getting a do-over in life, depression) and the author will often write quote-worthy sentences (like, ‘you can choose choices but not outcomes,’ or ‘because, life is frightening, and it’s frightening for a reason, and the reason is that it doesn’t matter which branch of a life we get to live, we are always the same rotten tree,’ but the overall writing and the way the scenes are crafted still feel very commercial. In Literary Fiction, the scenes will often not move story forward but deeper. In these types of scenes nothing happens for the protagonist (they don’t move from point A to B, they don’t decide anything, or start on a new course), but the reader gets to understand the protagonist better (instead of changing something for the protagonist, the scene changes the reader).

Each scene in The Midnight Library moves the story forward, the scenes are fast-paced—and for me at least—lacked the emotional depth and impact that will often come with the introspection prevalent in Literary Fiction. I would definitely classify the writing here as commercial, despite the high-concept premise.

• World building

—The Midnight Library

Our members agreed there were a lot of fantastic features in this book where world building is concerned. Not only did we all enjoy the thought of the interim world being a Library (it figures, we’re a bunch of writers!) but the whole idea of sliding through different lives was very riveting as well. It was brilliant on the author’s side to make the ‘library’ different for different people (for some, it was a video store, for some, a restaurant…) and there was always a person there to guide you through the experience of choosing different lives—someone who helped you in a crucial moment of your own life; someone you trusted.

—Attributing a phenomenon we’ve all experienced to sliding

It was also a brilliant idea to attribute the phenomenon of going into another room for something and then forgetting what you needed by the time you got there—to sliding. The author used something we’ve all experienced in our own lives to tighten his world building, and to make it more real to us. However, he could’ve used more of such everyday occurrences to make us buy into the whole sliding concept. For instance, Déjà vu lends itself perfectly for this kind of story concept, but I’m sure other, less expected experiences could be used as well.

— Nora’s (too perfect?) lives

A part of world building that was highly contentious was the kinds of lives Nora got to live as she undid her regrets. When she undid her regret for not pursuing swimming—she ended up being an Olympic swimmer. When she undid her regret for leaving the band—the band got planetary popular and she got to date (and dump!) an A-list movie star—the very one she swooned over in real life. When she undid her regret for not marrying Dan—he turned out to be such a douchebag that it made us wonder what she ever saw in him in the first place (and it made it totally obvious that not marrying him should not be a regret at all). When she followed her friend to Australia—her friend ended up dead (which makes it no brainer that she shouldn’t regret not going). When she pursued her dream of being a glaciologist—of course she was one of the lucky ones who get to study glaciers in Svalbard.

A lot of members didn’t find anything wanting in this approach—that one single decision would’ve made Nora super successful in each of these fields. They argued that exploring full potential of these other lives was the point; that surely, in one of the thousands of versions of Nora’s life, it was possible that Nora was an Olympic swimmer/ rock star/ glaciologist. But for me, this detail felt like a glitch in worldbuilding, making the book less real: having an Olympic swimming career hinges on more than just wanting to pursue the sport. On top of real talent, you have to have luck with injuries, luck with timing, lots of money, good trainers…and still, success isn’t guaranteed. Succeeding as a rock star, especially on a global level, takes so much more than the drive to get there—otherwise there wouldn’t be so many garage bands waiting their whole lives for a breakthrough. Being one of the few glaciologists exploring the polar circle is also largely outside of one’s hands.

All of this made me have to suspend my disbelief a bit too much: that Nora had such potential in so many areas that all she had to do to get there was—decide to do it. It’s like saying that all I needed to do to be an astronaut (and I did want to be an astronaut, by the way!) was to want it and go for it. So many people want—and train to be astronauts. Few ever go to space. So many people want to want to be the next Hemingway, Austen, or Stephen—or Lily—King. Few of us will, sadly, live to see such success.

But I was in the minority—most members loved this aspect of the book and felt the topic of regret was explored to the fullest this way—by giving Nora these larger-than-life experiences. They argued that, if Nora had led half-way lives in each of these examples, the point of the book would have been less obvious and undermined.

I must say, I disagreed with that as well (sorry, dear members! I know you wish you were writing this recap so you could better explain your position. I can hear you arguing with me as you’re reading this!). I felt that the same—even more powerful point—could have been made if things weren’t so obvious. The author operated in black-and-white. Things were so obviously perfect (famous rock star, Olympic swimmer) until they weren’t (famous rock star whose brother is dead; Olympic swimmer with unhappy life; married to Dan who’s a cheating alcoholic) to underline his point. If these experiences were more nuanced, more realistic, they might have made me reflect more, instead of going ‘Duh! This is a no brainer—no wonder she wouldn’t want this life!’

For instance, if Dan didn’t turn out to be a cheater with no regard for Nora’s emotions whatsoever—if he were, instead depicted as a decent enough guy but who didn’t make Nora as happy as she could possibly be—it would have underlined the same point, but in a more nuanced way, and pulled on my own emotions much more effectively. I would see Nora’s struggle to fight off the regret for not marrying him. This way, the regret was rendered unnecessary, but not by Nora—but by circumstances (Dan’s behavior) themselves.

This leads us to the next point.

• The book was predictable (signaling issues with narrative drive)

Whether we classified ourselves as Lovers or Haters, we all agreed that the outcome of the book was obvious from very early on—that Nora will learn to value the life she has, and that among many other lives she could’ve chosen, she’ll choose to fix the one she already has.

A valuable point, to be sure, but the black-and-white approach I just talked about made it a little bit too predictable—and hence, the whole novel was low on narrative drive.

Narrative drive is created through igniting concern or curiosity in your reader: you want your reader to burn to know what happens next and how the story will unfold (curiosity element), and you want them to fret about how what’s about to happen will affect your protagonist (concern).

Since it was obvious from very early on where the author was driving the plot, the element of curiosity got reduced to wondering about which lives Nora will try out and if she’ll like it there. That was interesting, even though we did pretty much know from the get-go what her biggest regrets were (marriage, swimming, Australia, band, glaciology) so the lives she chose to test weren’t unexpected at all.

Concern, though, was virtually non-existent. We didn’t worry about Nora. The author tried to address this issue by adding an element to his worldbuilding—something about Nora giving up on sliding that would make the library start disappearing, but this worldbuilding detail wasn’t as honed and clear as it should’ve been. Namely, Nora had given up in the moment when she committed suicide—so why bring her to the library in the first place? And she didn’t want to try out new lives from the get-go, but there were only two times did the library respond by fading out.

There are also points along the way that were repetitive—she learns when she’s fighting the bear that she actually wants to live. The same point is later on reiterated a couple of times, so it feels like Nora learns and re-learns the same thing over and over again.

• Emotional connection with the character

There were members who felt deeply connected to Nora and her plight. And then, there were those of us who didn’t care much for her or about her.

We tried to analyze why this discrepancy happened, and this is what we learned: our own life experiences really matter when it comes to liking (and connecting with) characters. Some of our members are acquainted (either personally or through loved ones) with the topics of suicide and depression. For these members, this story bore quite a resonant message and they connected deeply with the protagonist. They felt Nora’s despair viscerally; it had drawn them into this book, and sustained them throughout reading it.

Then, there were those among us who couldn’t connect with Nora at all, and didn’t really care for her as a result. For those members the narrative distance left much to be desired by keeping us out of Nora’s experience. This distance between the reader and the protagonist was created through:

— Authorial POV. There is an outside narrator relating the story—the story is told in third person POV but with an occasional addition of authorial comments from the narrator, who jumps in to give us their take of the situation.

— Using filter words. The author used a lot of filter words—see, know, feel, wonder. Instead of allowing the POV character to just see, know, feel whatever it is they are seeing/knowing/feeling, the author added this additional filter of distance.

— Telling vs. showing. The scale between telling and showing in this book was significantly tipped in favor of telling. We were being told everything—what Nora feels, thinks, what’s going on. In fact, I think this is the book that’s the heaviest on telling among all the books we’ve read so far. Telling also creates narrative distance: you’re not experiencing the world from the protagonist’s POV—you’re being told about it. It’s like hearing your friend tell you what happened in a movie, instead of watching the movie yourself.

—Lack of stakes. Very early on, Nora makes an attempt on her life. She decides to die. So what’s at stake if she doesn’t do well while sliding? Haven’t the worst things that could have happened to her—already happened? The author tried to increase stakes with the library fading and with the possibility of Nora completely disappearing, but in my opinion, not very successfuly. Largely, I think, because Nora herself didn’t care much about the outcome. If she doesn’t care, how can the reader?

• Character agency and characterization

Another thing about Nora that made it harder for some of us to connect with her was the fact that in the very opening of the book things start to go from bad to worse for her: her cat dies, she gets fired, she bumps into an old bandmate who blames her for the band falling apart, the old gent she buys medicine for tells her he doesn’t need her anymore, the boy she gave piano lessons to quits… all within first 10% of the book.

Some of us felt frustrated with this opening— throughout this bit Nora has no agency, she responds to the outside events, but doesn’t command them. She also comes across as inactive and whiny.

Others wholeheartedly disagreed. They argued that this is very true to life—that it throws three or four bad things at you at a time. They also argued that depression makes you seem whiny to other people, that it takes your agency away, and that it makes you feel incapacitated and unable to do anything but react to life’s curveballs. For these members, the way the author handled the opening was the very proof of great and true-to-life characterization.

While I lack the knowledge about depression to really say anything smart, I wonder if it could’ve been handled in a way that left no doubt in any reader’s mind (those who are familiar with depression as well as those who aren’t) on how depression feels? Isn’t this the pinnacle of writing—when not only those people who know what you’re talking about can relate but also those who don’t? Dear Edward came to mind, and how depression was handled there. Even though I’ve never experienced it in my own life, I could envision how that would be, and I didn’t have a doubt in my mind it was depression he was feeling, even though he never said so or lamented his unfortunate situation.

• Interesting science aspects to the book

While not all of us appreciated the way Nora was characterized, or how she engaged with our emotions, there was a unanimous fascination with the scientific aspects of this book. We loved hearing about the Dunbar numbers, Shroedinger’s cat, the theory behind wave function of the universe, the posibility of existing simultaneously in different multiverses… If anything created narrative drive for me, it was this aspect of the book.

Conclusion

First, let me reiterate that the vast majority of the book club members loved this book and found it riveting. While they may have agreed that there was a lot of telling and filter words used, and even that the book was predictable, it didn’t affect their reading experience in the least. Some of them found the topics of depression and attempted suicide very personal and this is what hooked them.

There were a few of us, though, who felt a little bit let down by this book. And to be honest, this had a lot to do with high expectations we’d had when starting it. With 300,000 ratings on Goodreads and all the buzz this book has created—and yes, with the fantastic, promising premise—our expectations were set on high. For us, the combination of commercial writing and failure to engage with our emotions, paired with predictability made for a little less engrossing reading experience than we’d hoped for. Though, I must emphasize again, this was not a bad book. We just may have expected more from it.

With that, I’ll wrap up this month’s book club recap! Hope you enjoyed reading! Until next time—keep safe and keep writing!

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Have you read this book? Did you like it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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