The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Audiobook, read March 2021

I really enjoyed listening to this sweet, fun, existential book. I should qualify that, though: it is a book about wanting to die, about not being able to escape the crush of being alive, about grappling with disappointment and being disappointing. But I am a neurodivergent person with a fifteen-year history of depression, and a few solid years of debilitating anxiety, so these things aren’t heavy for me. Because this is also a book about learning what it means to live and thrive and love, and those lessons in my own life have been hard-won and life changing. So the existential dread of this book is vastly outweighed by its sweet hopeful journey and ending (beginning), and I smiled to myself for almost the entirety of its last hour. Plus, a magical library and a charming librarian! I absolutely recommend this.