The Auction by Tiffany Reisz

 

 Original Sinners 0.2

 

Blurb

 

You're invited to New York City's hottest dating event: Kingsley Edge's annual King's Trust Charity Auction.

New on the auction block this year is Daniel, a wealthy widower and Dominant. However, he happens to have his eyes on another first-timer in the club's auction: Anya, a strikingly beautiful virgin submissive from his native Canada.

Too bad Anya hates him on sight. Or does she? There's a fine line between hatred and burning passion, and Daniel is determined to bring Anya across it. Now let the bidding begin....

 

Review

 

It is no secret I’m a huge fan of Tiffany Reisz’s Original Sinners series. Less well-known is that I’ve had a reading crush on Daniel since I first encountered him in these stories. Just my luck that he’s a dominant who features a lot less frequently than Kingsley and Soren, the two ‘uber’ Doms in this world. But it does mean that I appreciate every opportunity to spend some of my time with him all the more. In fact, the fact that this is a re-read and re-review is a good indication of how much I enjoy my encounters with Daniel.

The following is a re-write, with additions, of what I wrote in 2012 (I can’t quite believe how much time has passed):

Daniel returns to America and Manhattan after a year of travelling the world and testing his limits. A year that has helped him come to terms with his wife’s tragic death but has done nothing to help him get over Eleanor, the young sub he shared a week with, who helped him escape from his self-imposed house arrest after his loss and wouldn’t stay with him once the week was over. Now he’s about to enter Kingsley Edge’s world again; a world of BDSM as well as the world where Eleanor spends a lot of her time. Before he meets Kingsley though he has to get past the front door and Anya, a young woman from Quebec who appears to take an instant dislike to him. When Daniel finds out that Anya is about to put her virginity up for auction in order to care for her five, younger, siblings he is worried about the young woman and what she may have to face. But it isn’t until he has another encounter with Eleanor and finally realises that she will never be his that he realises that Anya may well be the ideal woman to make his own. Making Anya feel the same and saving her from the auction won’t be easy though and requires assistance as well as a devious plan.

As always Tiffany Reisz managed to captivate me with her story. Daniel is a wonderful character; strong and very dominant as well as caring and thoughtful he reads like a dream come true. Having said that, Daniel’s story requires some suspension of disbelief. Over the course of only a few weeks he moves from still not having quite come to terms with the loss of his wife while obsessing about Eleanor and wanting her back to falling for Anya so hard that he not only wants her as his sub but also offers to take on her whole family. I can’t say this speedy development bothered me, though. I’ve long since learned that the world of the Original Sinners, while resembling the world I live in, comes with its own set of rules. Sex and feelings are intense, come fast (pun totally intended), and transform characters.

This was a wonderful and very sexually charged love story and I was very sorry when it was over. Nine years after I first attended the auction, my feelings about the novella haven’t changed at all. Just as I still can’t seem to get enough of these characters or of Tiffany Reisz’ stories.

 

Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

Publisher: Serpent’s Tail

340 pages

Blurb

A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.

 

Review

This isn’t the first time I state that I have no idea how to review a book, but Detransition, Baby takes that statement to a whole new level. Not only am I not sure what to say, I don’t know how to say it either. Trans men and women, transition, as well as detransition is such a loaded subject (these days) I imagine I’m not the only person afraid to open her mouth in case I get it wrong and, without meaning to do so, upset an already vulnerable section of people.

I guess I’ll start with more general statements about this book. Detransition, Baby is a captivating story featuring three fascinating main characters. Any story about people attempting to break the mould and construct a new way of living—a new form of family—is bound to intrigue the reader, make them think and maybe reconsider what they’ve always accepted as ‘the norm’. A triangle constructed of three people who barely know each other and/or barely know each other in their current incarnation is bound to deliver a thrilling journey filled with ups and downs, accidental faux pas, and a steep learning curve.

Of course, Detransition, Baby takes those issues and levels them up to well beyond 11 since it throws together Reese, a trans woman, Amy/Ames a detransitioned trans woman, and Katrina, a cis woman who knows very little about trans issues and queer culture in general.

In this scenario, it would be easy to assume that I’d identify most with Katrina. And, up to a point I did but I also discovered that the Reese and Amy’s thoughts and feelings were far less alien to me than I’d assumed the might be.

In fairness, the scenario as presented in this book should be a recipe for disaster. Katrina finds herself pregnant by her lover, Ames. She doesn’t find out that Ames was Amy for several years until after she tells him she’s expecting. Katrina doesn’t want to raise a child on her own. Ames wants to raise a child but can’t commit to a future as a dad. Ames’s ‘solution’ to their dilemma is to bring in Reese, the trans woman he had a relationship of several years with when he was Amy. Reese desperately wants to be a mother but transition, of course, doesn’t come with the sudden ability to fall pregnant.

Over the course of the book, we shift from now—4 to 12 weeks after conception—to Reese and Amy’s pasts. We get to know Reese best, Amy/Amis almost as well but we learn less about Katrina. Probably because her life as a cis, mixed-race, and divorced woman is recognisable for most readers.

Initially, I read Reese’s story as something of a car crash, but it didn’t take me long to reconsider. If I look at transition as a sort of rebirth and take into account the boost of hormones required to transition her (or any other trans person) displaying what to me might look like teenage tendencies, is hardly surprising…to be expected even.

And that paragraph is a good description of my reading experience as a whole. Many thoughts, feelings, and actions I encountered were at first alien to me only to become at least somewhat recognisable or understandable after closer inspection. Without wanting to diminish what is, of course, a unique experience, I can’t help thinking that we are not as far removed from each other as we might believe at first. Or rather (and I’m having a hard time putting these feelings into words), I recognised certain aspects, be it that they are larger and harsher for trans people and nowhere near as easy to ignore or push under the carpet as they are for cis people. And regardless of the (un)truth in that statement, the fact remains that society at large is so busy establishing a barrier—an ‘us vs. them scenario— between trans people and everybody else, that everything that does or might connect us gets lost in the process. As the following quote shows, the book touches on this idea too when Reese and Katrina discuss divorce:

“The only people who have anything worthwhile to say about gender are divorced cis women who have given up on heterosexuality but are attracted to men. [..] They go through everything I go through as a trans woman. Divorce is a transition story. Of course, not all divorced women go through it. I’m talking about the ones who felt their divorce as a fall, or as a total reframing of their lives. The ones who have seen how the narratives given to them since girlhood have failed them, and who know there is nothing to replace it all. But who still have to move forward without investing in new illusions or turning bitter – all with no plan to guide them.”

Of course, I’m not a divorced woman. But I do believe there are other reasons for women (people in general?) to reinvent themselves, with all the confusion and conflicting emotions that creates. Then again, I can’t rule out that I’m (over)simplifying the issue; restructuring what I read so that it fits within my own experiences.

I could go on, but I’ll refrain. This book provoked a ton of thoughts and I know I’ll be pondering them for some time to come. This is one book I will re-read and re-read again. I took my time with this story because I knew there was a lot in it for me to process. Despite reading slowly and consciously I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ve missed a lot. In my quest to learn and understand I will revisit this story.

As for the (very) ambiguous ending… I think it was a good fit. This isn’t an easy tale and shouldn’t come with perfect solutions and a fairy-tale ending; it’s too real and raw for that. Having said that, now that I know there will be a television series and that the producer has asked for a second season, I can’t wait to find out how Torrey Peters will continue Reese, Amy/Amis, and Katrina’s story.

 

 

 

Into the Fire by Rachael Blok

Publisher: Head of Zeus

Pages: 378

DCI Jansen #3

 

Blurb

 Eleven guests. Three nights. One murderer

In a stately mansion in the Hertfordshire countryside sisters Lois and Ebba prepare to launch their new venture. Archipelago is an exploitation-free tech company whose virtual reality game promises to unite the worlds of technology, politics and the environment.

Invited to the launch party are their celebrity investors: a glamorous British couple, a brooding Swedish financier, a Dutch banker and his film star wife and a controversial politician–Marieke–who is receiving death threats for her crusade against modern slavery.

DCI Maarten Jansen has been summoned to join the house party. He is sure the threats are from online trolls with nothing better to do – he’s only offering police protection because his boss wants to put the VIP guests at ease. But when eight of the guests are involved in a suspicious helicopter crash, Maarten starts to uncover long-buried secrets – and a murderer in their midst… 

Review

Given that I already had seven unread library books at home and also own at least 100 physical books I haven’t read yet – I’m not mentioning unread ebooks because that way lies madness – bringing home yet another title was the last thing I needed. But show me a cover featuring an author’s (sur)name that sounds distinctly Dutch and combine that with a blurb mentioning a Dutch banker and a controversial politician named Marieke both featuring in a thriller in which the main investigator is a Dutch expat in the UK, and you may understand why I didn’t have a choice.

I’m delighted to say that I do not regret my decision. Into the Fire is a fast-paced and intriguing thriller filled with secrets, twists and turns, and plenty of suspense. Given the setting, there’s only a limited number of potential victims and perpetrators. With most of these characters (secretly) being connected to each other in one way or another, the tension continues to rise with each new revelation. Those secrets are revealed slowly and not always completely which means that suspicions change, and possible motives keep on coming, keeping the reader on their toes while trying to figure out what on earth might be going on.

I find it ridiculously hard to review a thriller/mystery without giving away too much. Since this book succeeded in keeping me guessing right until the very end and I wouldn’t want to deprive other readers of that pleasure, I’m going to keep this one short. I do want to say that this book is best read in as few sittings as possible. Even while reading the book over the course of twenty-four hours, I struggled at times to keep up with who was who and how everybody related to each other.

I can honestly say that didn’t lessen my reading joy. I loved the red herrings and the fact that for a long time it wasn’t even clear who the intended victim(s) is/are or if the ‘right’ person had died only added to my enjoyment.

After finishing Into the Fire, I discovered that it is the third book in a series. Since the possibility of prequels hadn’t occurred to me even once while reading this story, I can honestly say that this book works perfectly as a stand-alone story.

If you’re in the mood for a thrilling page-turner that will almost certainly keep you guessing, look no further.

Sorry for the Dead by Nicola Upson

 

Josephine Tey Mystery #8

350 pages

Blurb

Summer, 1915: a young woman falls to her death at Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. But was it an accident?

Twenty years later, Josephine Tey is faced with the accusation that it was murder, and that she was complicit in the crime. Can she clear her name and uncover the truth, exposing the darkest secrets of that apparently idyllic summer?

 

Review                        

It’s been years since I last read a Josephine Tey mystery by Nicola Upson. I loved the first three when I discovered them and I’m not sure why I stopped reading them, but it was obviously a mistake. When I saw this latest title on the shelves in the library where I work, I picked it up immediately and that was a great decision.

The timeline in this story is spread out over 33 years with the first death happening in 1915 and the second in 1948 and involves a lot more than ‘just’ two suspicious deaths. And, as much as I love mysteries, especially well plotted ones like this, I have to admit that the secondary plot (if you can call it that) intrigued me more. I’ll get back to that.

In 1915 Josephine travels to the Sussex Downs to help supervising a group of schoolgirls who are spending their summer working on a farm run by Harriet and George, two women with a passion for horticulture and also for each other. The true nature of their relationship is a closely guarded secret, but when Josephine arrives on the farm, she soon recognises it for what it is, and she isn’t the only one. One of the girls has made an anonymous phone call to accuse the women in charge of Charleston Farmhouse of indecent behaviour. When that girl subsequently dies under suspicious circumstances, Josephine isn’t the only one suspecting foul play, but the subsequent inquest rules it death by misadventure, and that should have been the end of it.

Twenty years later a newspaper article brings the events from 1915 back to the fore while implying that the girl was murdered. and that Josephine is somehow implicated in the deed or the covering up thereof. Josephine wouldn’t be Josephine if she took the accusation lying down and it isn’t long before she’s investigating what really happened. Her quest reunites her with several people she hasn’t seen for in over twenty years and brings back memories of a special but also painful and confusing time of her life.

Which brings me to the sub-plot. The two women who own and run Charleston Farmhouse are in a relationship. They are very discrete because they know the world at large doesn’t approve but living in close quarters with a group of girls on the cups of adulthood means that their secret isn’t safe.

Josephine falls for and starts a relationship with Jeannie, a young woman her own age she meets in Sussex. As everything falls apart after the girl dies, Josephine experiences first-hand how the world feels about women who love women, and it pushes her to make a hurtful decision.

For me, that was the real story in this book. Since it also plays a huge role in the mystery and its resolution, you could call it the theme of this novel. How much are we willing to endure for love? How much are we willing to put at risk? Is love enough when the rest of the world turns its back to you? How far are we willing to go to protect those we love? In fact, book could just as easily have been called ‘The Things We Do for Love’. Because when pushed enough, love, in all its wonderous and obsessive forms, can make us do the most amazing and shocking things.

Long story short; Sorry for the Dead is a wonderful book containing a fascinating mystery and an equally interesting background story. Well plotted and a very smooth read, this story was a joy to read.

Listening Still by Anne Griffin

Sceptre

345 pages

 Blurb

Jeanie Masterson has a gift: She can hear the recently dead and give voice to their final wishes and revelations. Shared by her father, the gift has enabled the family undertakers to flourish in their small Irish town.

Yet, Jeanie has always been uneasy about censoring what she hears to protect the feelings of the living. Unsure too about the choice she made seventeen years ago, giving up the chance of a new life in London with her first love, Fionn, to work with her father and aunt – or the wisdom of marrying her faithful childhood friend Niall when she has never quite been able to forget Fionn.

Until now Jeanie has stifled her doubts, but when her parents unexpectedly announce their plan to retire and leave the business to her and Niall, she is jolted out of limbo.

In this captivating successor to her bestselling debut When All is Said, Anne Griffin masterfully portrays a young woman torn between duty and a last chance to break free – unaware that she’s not the only one who has long been softening the truth.

 

 Review

What to say about Listening Still other than WOW. Anne Griffin has done it again, be it that for me, Listening Still isn’t quite as breath-taking as When All is Said was. However, that may be because I have very strong feelings about the subject matter of the latter book, and not because there’s anything wrong with Listening Still.

In Listening Still, we meet thirty-something Jeanie who finds herself reassessing her whole life and the decisions she made and avoided making. Born into a family of funeral directors and being one of only two people in Ireland who can hear the thoughts of the death, her future appears set in stone before she is old enough to fully realise what a future is especially since she loves hearing from the death as a child.

Jeanie is basically a good girl, who takes her responsibilities seriously and, for the longest time, without much question. When Jeanie’s parents announce their decision to retire and move away, the house of cards starts crumbling. Jeanie questions everything. With her dad being the only other person who can communicate with the recently deceased, Jeanie will no longer be able to share the burden. She has long held doubts about her father’s inclination to beautify the final words and revelations when relaying them to the next of kin. Was she right to give up on the love of her life in order to fulfil what felt like her destiny? Does she love her husband, Niall enough? Is the life she is living really what she wants and needs?

In many ways this is a coming-of-age story, even if Jeanie goes through the process somewhat later in life than most. Jeanie has always done what was expected of her and has taken her responsibilities very seriously without ever asking herself how she felt about it. Between her parents’ announcement and further shocks, her breakdown is hardly surprising. The question becomes if it’s ever too late to be what you might have been and if Jeanie could ever have been anything other than what she is. The story poses some further interesting questions, such as, why do we tell those seemingly innocent little white lies? Is it really to spare others pain or discomfort or are our reasons more selfish; are we in fact trying to save ourselves from uncomfortable situations or embarrassment? Listening Still also asks how much of our lives we live for ourselves. How much of ourselves our we willing to deny in order to accommodate others?

I can’t say I agreed with or understood many of Jeanie’s decisions, nor her refusal to make them. But I was fascinated by the dilemmas she faces, heartbroken about some of the consequences, and frustrated with her refusal to take responsibility for the consequences of her (in)actions. It is, however, not necessary to agree with or even like characters in order to get caught up in their journey, and Jeanie’s progress over the course of this book had me entranced.

Maurice, from When All is Said makes an appearance in this story. Well, his corpse does. And he doesn’t talk to Jeanie. What she learns about him, she hears from his son, Kevin. I can’t help wondering if Anne Griffin was tempted to make him speak to Jeanie, to explain his reasoning one more time. Whether she considered it or not, I’m glad she didn’t, because Maurice told us everything we needed to know about him in his own amazing and memorable book.

My romance writer’s heart struggled with the somewhat ambiguous ending, but that’s not to say there was anything wrong with how the book ended. Quite the opposite in fact. When everything starts from scratch, the future is, by its very nature, at least a little ambiguous. The story couldn’t have ended any other way; if it had, it would have been a betrayal of both the previous 340 pages and of the main character(s).

Long review short: Listening Still was a captivating read, even if it did read a little like a car crash at times. The twist near the end was clever in that it came as a shock as well as a moment of clarity. While this isn’t a book for someone who wants stories to end with every question answered and all characters settled into their happy ever after, this is the perfect read for someone who, like me, enjoys playing the ‘I wonder what might happen next’ game after they’ve read the last chapter. With a storyline and main character that will stay with me for a long time, Listening Still has earned itself a place on my ‘extra-special’ list.

To read my review of When All is Said, click here: Review

 

  

Make Yourself at Home by Ciara Geraghty

404 pages

Publisher: HarperCollins

Blurb

 It’s the last place she wants to be. It’s the only place left to go

When Marianne’s carefully constructed life and marriage fall apart, she is forced to return to Ancaire, the ramshackle seaside house perched high on a cliff by the Irish Sea. There she must rebuild her relationship with her mother, Rita, a flamboyant artist and recovering alcoholic who lives by her own rules.

Marianne left home when she was fifteen following a traumatic and tragic incident. She never planned to return, and now she has to face the fact that some plans don’t work out the way you wanted them to. But she might just discover that, sometimes, you have to come to terms with the story of your past before you can work out the shape of the future…

Set on the wild Irish coast, with an unforgettable cast of characters, this deeply emotional novel is full of Ciara Geraghty’s trademark heart and poignancy.

Review

Having read and enjoyed Ciara Geraghty’s books in the past, I went into this story fully expecting to love it too. I was not prepared for how much Marianne’s tale would capture me, keep me enthralled, and make me think.

On the surface, this is the story about a woman coming to terms with the unexpected demise of her marriage and the troubled relationship with her mother, and that would have made an interesting story.

Scratch that surface just a little, and you’ll find so much more. Marianne put her feelings on hold when she was a teenager. From that moment forward her decisions have been based on practical considerations rather than emotions. It was safe and, for some time, her distant approach to life and connections worked. She seemed to have it all: a practical husband who appeared to be as eager as she was to keep emotions at bay, a good and safe job, a beautiful house, furnished to her exact and unexciting standards. She’s created an environment in which she can pretend she is fine, her life is good, and the past is an ugly but distant memory.

When her house of cards falls apart, Marianne crumbles too. With all her securities torn away she has no choice but to return to the past, the house, and the mother, she’s avoided for more than half her life.

Going home for Marianne is like returning to the setting of a nightmare. Back at Ancaire (Anker—such an appropriate name), Marianne doesn’t try to be nice or take care of herself. She resents others trying to take care of her and puts as much distance between herself and her mother’s life as she can, given they’re sharing a house and her mother’s full-on approach to life.

Between Rita’s joie de vivre, the mixed bag of characters that make up Rita’s group of recovering alcoholics, and a persistent dog, Marianne appears to be coming back from the brink. Almost against her wishes, Marianne finds herself getting involved with causes and interested in people again. Until a shocking discovery throws her back to what appears to be square one.

This story packs a punch, yet it is written so well and so smoothly that the reader could almost miss that rather than an angry and selfish woman, Marianne is a lost soul who has struggled with depression ever since she was fifteen—for so long, in fact, that she doesn’t recognise her actions and reactions as a mental health issue.

For a very long time, Marianne reads as an unsympathetic main character whereas her mother appears to be a bundle of joy. And that’s where the beauty of this story comes fully to light. Because nothing is that simple and, just as Marianne is pulled out of her self-isolation almost against her wishes and in barely perceptible steps, I was surprised to find myself first sympathising with her and then understanding her actions and thoughts. This story and the characters in it are real and raw. They crawled their way under my skin. I wasn’t just interested in how their story might end, I was invested in their journey and its outcome.

I love that the book didn’t end on miracles. Instead, we’re given a scattering of possibilities, glimmers of hope, and potential futures. And while the above may make you think that Make Yourself at Home is a heavy and possibly depressing read, the opposite is through. Marianne’s darkest moments are balanced by the very mixed and mostly unfiltered company she keeps. For every painful experience, there is at least one laugh-out-loud moment. And Marianne’s journey is not only beautiful to behold but inspirational too.

Long story short: Make Yourself at Home is an amazing read. It will make you think and feel, but most of all, it will ultimately lift you up and leave you with a satisfied smile on your face. This book is exactly what I needed to fight my 18-month long reading slump.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 

288 pages

Publisher: Canongate

Blurb

'Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?'

A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

Review

I bought this book when it first came out after seeing rave reviews. What’s more, I follow Matt Haig on Twitter and I love his positive messages. Besides, what’s not to love about a book featuring a library filled with books depicting alternate lifelines? Libraries have held a magical gravitational pull for me for as long as I can remember. It started with me as a borrower, and it remains true now that I’m a librarian.

Now that I have finished the book, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. It’s a beautifully written story with a fascinating and original premise. It is also an easy read, despite its deeper message and references to philosophy and quantum physics.

Nora’s journey starts on the day she loses her job and her cat dies. It’s too much. Nothing in her life is right and nothing has been right for too long. She can’t face anymore life so she chooses death. Next thing she knows, she finds herself in a library in which all the books look the same and none appear to have titles. The librarian is someone she remembers from her school days. Mrs. Elm was there for Nora when she needed a shoulder to cry on while in school and it appears Mrs. Elm is here for Nora again now that she needs someone to help her make sense of the mess that was her life.

Mrs. Elm is such an appropriate name. It could, of course be a coincidence, but I doubt it. Not when the spiritual meaning of ‘elm’ is as follows:

 

Elm acknowledges that life's difficulties can create the illusion that we are isolated, alone and misunderstood. This can leave us feeling powerless and therefore trapped. The elm spirit is here to gently encourage us to rethink our situation from a different perspective.

 

Throughout the story, Nora visits alternative lives; those in which she made different choices and discovers who she would have been as a consequence of following those other paths. Along the way she learns lessons. About herself, about the choices she made, and about the people she encountered on her journey.

The object of her journey is to determine once and for all whether she really wants to die and, if not, how she wants to live. I’m not going to say anything else about either the journey or Nora’s final decision except that the story ends on a positive but thankfully not magical or too good to be true note.

“She realised that she hadn’t tried to end her life because she was miserable, but because she had managed to convince herself that there was no way out of her misery.”

I guess it’s fair to say that I enjoyed this read. The story sucked me in and didn’t release me until I read the last page. The book also made me think…a lot, which is a good thing. I love books that make me wonder or question things. However, not all my thoughts and questions were completely positive. Below are some of the thoughts I had while reading the book. I typed them out as they occurred to me and I’ve decided to leave them like that. This may well mean that they make little sense to those who haven’t read the book. It is also possible that I repeat myself once or twice, and I can’t rule out that they don’t contain a spoiler or two. So, if you haven’t read the book yet but are planning to do so, proceed with caution.

 

Thinky-Thoughts

• The premise is wonderful, but to me at 50 pages into the story, somewhat imperfect. Nora is playing the ultimate ‘what if’ game. But surely there is no such thing as the perfect life for any given person. All decisions have consequences. Every path chosen rules out numerous other paths left unexplored. And there is no such thing as happily ever after in real life. Every life, regardless of the choices that brought us to it, includes the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, joy and heartbreak and I guess mostly happy is the best we can hope for. But I’m still at the start of this book. For all I know, this is the lesson Nora must learn in The Midnight Library.
• It’s funny, I would have said asking the ‘what if’ question when it comes to life decisions is a bit like setting yourself up for dissatisfaction and doubts. I make a point of avoiding the question unless there is an opportunity to still end up on the path I initially rejected through my choices.
• The first alternative life Nora visits is the one where she married Dave and they opened a country pub together. It opens her eyes and shows her that maybe she didn’t make a mistake when she pulled out of the wedding but… As valid and as clear as the message that the grass isn’t greener elsewhere is, Nora jumps to that conclusion as a result of what she observes and learns in less than an hour. She and we see all Dan’s faults but because Nora hasn’t lived that life, she doesn’t know anything about what led up to Dan’s current state of being or what role Nora may or may not have played in that journey. And she doesn’t really question it either.
•  A big problem for me is that the alternate lives Nora gets to contrast against the live she lived and rejected don’t actually compare to her lived reality. In the life she lived she was aware of who she was, who she interacted with, and why she did or didn’t do certain things. She’s thrown into the alternatives without any background knowledge. It isn’t comparing like with like if you have a history and current knowledge in one setting and nothing to hang on to in any of the others. How can Nora judge whether or not any alternative life is better or worse than the one she lived without knowledge of how she got to that particular point in time or about the people she shares it with?
• As Nora discovers, different decisions my lead to different outcomes, but only on a superficial level because the person at the root of those decisions is the same in every ‘simulation’. Hence she finds she is on the same medication to manage her depression in most lives, no matter how (un)successful.
• I keep on coming back to the fact that Nora enters her alternative lives without any knowledge about who she is and what, exactly, she does in that existence. How is she supposed to decide which life to make her own if she is a stranger in all of them? In fact, I’m starting to feel that this book could be told in the same fashion while heading to the opposite conclusion; In every single life she enters, she is out of her depth and therefore incapable. It doesn’t matter how successful she is in any particular incarnation, because it isn’t her. So she’s bound to make a mess of the speech she has been booked to make and to confuse the ending of a pop concert. She wasn’t there for all that build up to the moment she’s just entered, so how can she make the moment her own and feel at home in it? Nora is learning to appreciate life again. But wouldn’t it be just as easy to use those experiences to reach the conclusion that no matter where she is, she ends up making a mess of things?
• I guess with this book it is a simple case of ‘I love the message but I’m not sure the vehicle delivering it is quite up to the task’ for me.
• I do wonder if maybe I’m overthinking this story and its message. Then again, is it even possible to overthink a book that was so obviously written to make people think about their lives and how they react to and deal with its ups and downs?

 

Which brings me to my conclusion. From reactions on Twitter and Goodreads, where 79% of the ratings are either four or five stars, it is clear that this is a much-loved book. What’s more, it appears to have helped people in that it brought them a message they needed to read. The whole Covid/lockdown situation over the past 14 months may well have played a role in that, but that doesn’t diminish the value of this story (for those people).

Don’t get me wrong. I did appreciate the message. God knows there was a time in my life when this book might have been exactly what I needed to help me find a little perspective on what was happening. In fact, there is probably nothing wrong with the book. I think I may have gone in with my expectations raised too high. Maybe I expected this work of fiction to provide answers it was never supposed to give. And maybe I had non-fiction expectations about a fictional tale. In the end, I still stand by what I said at the start. The Midnight Library is a well-written story, well told. The premise is intriguing and if there are flaws in the execution, they didn’t spoil Nora’s story for me. If you’ve ever wanted to read a book about life, its meaning, and embracing all its opportunities, I urge you to pick up The Midnight Library.