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A review by jonscott9
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
4.0
One of the most lustrous qualities of this for me was the fantastic, fairly deep-voiced Carey Mulligan giving voice to all its parts, the characters and expositional narration. That's right, this is the first audiobook I've finished in decades, maybe ever. I don't know if I did audiobooks (read: books on tape) as a kid, but reader, let me tell you, I inhaled this one the way I used to pound-read books in home-schooling and then Lutheran elementary. (Ah yes, we all have our stories to tell.)
Nora Seed's story, as writ by nonfiction specialist Matt Haig, took me by surprise. I'd read a couple of his self-help adjacent, semi-memoir books before, and enjoyed them, but this took me by surprise. The premise is akin to a range of things that critics and other reviewers have noted, and gave me Gwyneth "Sliding Doors" Paltrow vibes. Not Nora herself, but the concept that we've lived different lives, or would if we chose different paths, persons, etc., o'er the course of our lives.
Well, of course we would. It's not so deep of itself, but the differences in degrees of happiness, fame, tragedy, income, etc. – all these qualitative and/or quantitative factors of our lives – come to vivacious life in Haig's storytelling. I could see the entirety of this thing playing out on a stage, especially in sequences with Nora's husband-or-not, Ash, and with the titular library's keeper herself, Mrs. Elm, among their many interludes.
I've wanted at times to be that songwriter, that singer, that performer. In that one, Nora Seed, I sure do get you. Generally, the diversions among would-be lives are rich, even if it's a bit cloying how Nora has to bluff her way through getting her bearings in each environment, relationship and so on. There's no way someone would have gotten on as she did in a couple of those scenes in which she's oblivious to the facts of that world; someone surely would have taken her to get her head checked.
Again, Carey Mulligan is a star here. A lot of this read's impact and pleasure for me came from her; I'm not sure I'd have had quite the same experience in flat-out reading it, and I do adore her. The timbre of her voice is magical, just as everything about this tale is. I could barely take out my AirPods, made up excuses to run long-range errands or take long walks, which is to say as the cliche goes, I couldn't put this down.
Nora Seed's story, as writ by nonfiction specialist Matt Haig, took me by surprise. I'd read a couple of his self-help adjacent, semi-memoir books before, and enjoyed them, but this took me by surprise. The premise is akin to a range of things that critics and other reviewers have noted, and gave me Gwyneth "Sliding Doors" Paltrow vibes. Not Nora herself, but the concept that we've lived different lives, or would if we chose different paths, persons, etc., o'er the course of our lives.
Well, of course we would. It's not so deep of itself, but the differences in degrees of happiness, fame, tragedy, income, etc. – all these qualitative and/or quantitative factors of our lives – come to vivacious life in Haig's storytelling. I could see the entirety of this thing playing out on a stage, especially in sequences with Nora's husband-or-not, Ash, and with the titular library's keeper herself, Mrs. Elm, among their many interludes.
I've wanted at times to be that songwriter, that singer, that performer. In that one, Nora Seed, I sure do get you. Generally, the diversions among would-be lives are rich, even if it's a bit cloying how Nora has to bluff her way through getting her bearings in each environment, relationship and so on. There's no way someone would have gotten on as she did in a couple of those scenes in which she's oblivious to the facts of that world; someone surely would have taken her to get her head checked.
Again, Carey Mulligan is a star here. A lot of this read's impact and pleasure for me came from her; I'm not sure I'd have had quite the same experience in flat-out reading it, and I do adore her. The timbre of her voice is magical, just as everything about this tale is. I could barely take out my AirPods, made up excuses to run long-range errands or take long walks, which is to say as the cliche goes, I couldn't put this down.