Book started off interesting enough but it sort of cooled off for me starting around the middle. I thought the premise and the key ideas of discovering who you are and the purpose of life etc to be very intriguing and relevant for many of us in this society. So I was really looking forward to how everything unfolded for our protagonist, Nora. But alas, it didn’t grip me as much as I expected it to.

What worked:

• When I actually started reading the book, I was thinking Oh no – another messed up female protagonist whose antics would be served up as “funny” by the author – thankfully this wasn’t the case here. She acknowledges her faults to some extent and although she didn’t take action on her own accord to get herself out of the rut – the Midnight Library did that for her – the author didn’t show her wallowing in self-pity for too long, and honestly that was refreshing. Pretty tired of award-winning novels that always feature uninspiring disempowering female protagonists that are a complete mess and require someone to save them
• Short chapters. Always a fav with me
• Characters were interesting. Especially Mrs Elm.
• The premise of trying on different lives and seeing which one fits/to live out regrets
• Some of the lines were rather meaningful and did made me think about life

What didn’t work:

• If a character constantly tries on different lives, it starts to get a little repetitive. The “climax” life that Nora had didn’t really feel like a climax as well, and the way it was resolved and Nora just came back feeling like she needed to enjoy her current life wasn’t very exciting and it was actually rather predictable. Felt like you could have predicted that ending mid-way through
• The last couple of chapters were abit too feel-good and I felt were quite rushed. It was basically Nora suddenly realising she had to do better in her current life and suddenly she was treating everyone nice, everything was going amazingly well for her etc – just kinda hard to believe. I couldn’t really buy her 180 turnaround in perspective towards life. I felt she would just as easily slip back into her old “depressed” state again.

Overall rating: 3.5/5 Stars

I guess I expect alot from this book. Will still explore other titles by this author.