The Midnight Library
Matt Haig
Having read it
★★★☆☆
A good concept, in short, blog-like chapters, or rather, titled moments, with some good parts and good observations but, truth be told, not a great read.
Being honest though, I did skip quite a few parts as at times it seemed to get a bit lost in its own observations, which at its end it managed to neatly encapsulate and make. I just wasn’t a fan of the journey taken to get there... but then, that’s life and kind of the book’s point!
A good passage
This was a life where she put four exclamation marks in a row. That was probably what happier, less uptight people did.
A second good passage
‘You can be anything you want to be. Because in one life, you are.’
She [Nora] sipped her coffee. ‘I understand.’
‘But you will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life,’ he [Hugo] said, wisely.
‘You’re quoting Camus.’
‘You got me.’
A third good passage
The paradox of volcanoes was that they were symbols of destruction but also life. Once the lava slows and cools, it solidifies and then breaks down over time to become soil – rich, fertile soil.
She wasn’t a black hole, she decided. She was a volcano. And like a volcano she couldn’t run away from herself. She’d have to stay there and tend to that wasteland.
She could plant a forest inside herself.