The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 

    Have you ever had regrets? What would've happened had you never given up that sport? Went on the date with the person at the coffee shop? What would've happened had you lived differently?

    These are the types of questions constantly buzzing around Nora's mind, and Matt Haig offers his answer to these questions.

    Nora is a 35 year old woman who's life is in shambles. Everything in her life has fallen apart, from her family life to her work life, and she has no idea what to do. She believes she is all out of options and has decided she is better off dying. After committing this grave act, she finds herself in a library. A library hidden in the space between life and death. It is here where the librarian offers her a choice. Every book has a different story of Nora's life, and she is free to choose any book to experience. Even the smallest decision has its own book. This begins Nora's long journey of self exploration, growth, and healing as she jumps from book to book experiencing many different versions of herself.

    The narrative is 288pages and told in 3rd person, following Nora and her thoughts. It touches on themes of grief, family trauma, identity, depression, and regret among many others, as these topics can silently weigh down on our lives without us even noticing. It consistently challenges us to shift perspective and cultivate resilience so we may realize we are much stronger than we can even imagine. Every moment is an opportunity to take an action true to ourselves, and every action we take has impact. There are an infinite amount of ways our lives can unfold at any given moment, and the only way to learn what those are is to live. This book will drive that lesson home until you realize it's been a house rule your whole life. 

Please feel free the check it out and share your thoughts. It's certainly one I'm adding to my shelf of favorites!

- Leo H

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

 

The camptastic exterior of Motherthing I find both attractive and suspect: 

The collage of green-hued horror, the shadowy hand, but most of all the jellied salmon. 

The title transforming "mothering" to the more monstrous Mother/Thing. 

The subject: a couple haunted (in very different ways) by a mother/in law and the promise of a unique recipe for chicken a la king.

How can a book live up to this?

The book begins in an emergency room, where Abby and her husband wait for an update on his mother, who has just cut her wrists in their basement (not conveniently in a bathtub, Abby thinks later). Abby and Ralph are coping by joking about a hot tub of diarrhea, specifically baby diarrhea. It's a lot, and you will either appreciate the dark, sometimes gross sense of humor or you won't. 

The story kept me guessing. What would the balance be between horror and comedy? Humor turns out to be Abby's coping mechanism, one that grows in mania throughout the course of the novel, climaxing in an outrageous work lunch-room interaction. 

I won't say more about the book, other than that I really enjoyed it and the ending surprised me. 

- Michael G.