Reading Order
The Midnight Library Reading Order
Matt Haig's The Midnight Library (2020) is a complete standalone literary fiction novel. There is no sequel. The novel follows Nora Seed, who at 35 has given up on her life — and discovers, at the moment of ending it, a library between life and death where every book is a version of the life she didn't live. Each book represents a different choice she could have made. The novel is a meditation on regret, alternate lives, and what we actually need to be happy.
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The Midnight Library
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The Midnight Library
Matt Haig·2020·Standalone — Nora Seed discovers the Midnight Library between life and death, where she can try the lives she didn't live
The Midnight Library — Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Midnight Library a standalone?
Yes — The Midnight Library is a complete standalone novel with no sequels or prequels. Matt Haig has written other novels and nonfiction (Reasons to Stay Alive, The Humans, How to Stop Time), but The Midnight Library is entirely independent.
Is The Midnight Library appropriate for readers with mental health challenges?
The Midnight Library deals directly with suicidal ideation and the desire to no longer exist. The novel treats these topics with care and uses them to arrive at an ultimately affirmative argument about the value of continued life. Many readers with mental health challenges find it meaningful; others find it difficult. Content warnings for suicidal ideation and depression are appropriate.
Is The Midnight Library science fiction or literary fiction?
The Midnight Library is most commonly described as literary fiction or contemporary fiction — it uses a speculative premise (the library between life and death) but is shelved in literary fiction and does not engage with science fiction genre conventions. It is closely related to the parallel-lives sub-genre that includes works like One Day in December and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.
What is the message of The Midnight Library?
The Midnight Library argues that the life you are living, with all its failures and wrong turns, has possibilities you can't see from the middle of it — and that regret is often based on an incomplete picture of what would have happened in the alternate version. The novel is fundamentally about the value of the particular life you have, rather than the abstract life you wish you had.
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