Book rec: The Midnight Library

Sometimes I feel like the ghosts of my other potential lives are drifting beside me. When I visit a place I’ve never been before but actually feel like a déjà vu I think it’s because another me, one who made other decisions and took life in a different direction, is the one that has visited that place before, maybe even lives there now, and this sensation, this knowledge, is passed to me from the distance.

I don’t believe in reincarnation or that we can somehow access the knowledge learned in these past lives, but what I truly believe is that, no matter what, the “what if’s” are always bouncing on the back of our minds and let us wondering “what would my life look like today if I had chosen, or not, this or that path?” Maybe we are happily settled in our current situations, maybe we worked very hard to get where we are today, but even now we still wonder what would be of ourselves if we hadn’t achieved everything we managed to achieve, where would we be? Would we be happy? Would we be miserable? Would we even be alive today?

All of the above is difficult to respond, but, in some cases, in my case at least, sometimes this questions still linger in my head.

I’ve been going through a musing face on the “what if’s” of my life when, by chance, I started to read a book that reflects into this concepts into a very light easygoing yet deep way: The midnight library by Matt Haig.

I follow several book club and book recs accounts on social media and this book had been buzzing for some time. When I see a book is making a lot of noise, getting a lot of attention, I buy it and put it in the stack at my nightstand to be read at some time in the future. I don’t like reading the reviews in fear of spoilers, I like the books to be a surprise. And this book really surprised me. It gave me the exact answers I’ve been looking for. Sometimes life is funny this way, it throws some clues at you when you need them in the form of books, movies, songs, tv series or conversations.

This is a very easy to read book. It’s a novel written using simple vocabulary and terms and the extension is perfect, it is very quick to read. It’s fun and entertaining. At first I only saw it as an amenable diversion but, as I went deeper into it and, after I finished and the days passed and I was still reflecting upon it, I realized the message is powerful.

All of these doesn’t mean I am not happy with my current life, it is only that, sometimes, I can’t help wonder the “what if’s” of my other potential lives, the good and the bad.

So, if you are looking for some fun light reading with some moral to the story I highly recommend The midnight library ;)

The Midnight library, a novel by Matt Haig