“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.”

Imagine a world where you can pick and choose all the life stories you’ve missed and re-live them again to see how they would have turned out. Everyone has a Book of Regrets and while they try to keep the number low, sometimes, in hindsight, you would have made another choice knowing how the current path turned out.

“Regrets don’t leave. They weren’t mosquito bites. They itch for ever.”

The story starts with a suicide – the story of Nora Seed, who feels as though her life is no longer worth living. She ends up in the Midnight Library, a place in between life and death, where she is able to try on different lives she could have lived.

“It is quite a revelation to discover that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact same place you escaped from. That the prison wasn’t the place, but the perspective.”

In her book of regrets she misses her ex and her first pick was a life where she was married with him and they followed their dream of owning a pub together. Just like in “Deal with the Devil” – all of her decisions seem to backfire and she is never quite happy anywhere she goes. I’ve compiled a list of her lives and their outcome.

Wants to be back with her ex and own a pub	He ends up a drunkard and cheats on her with a young bar goer (multiple times). She’s unhappy with her new life and doesn’t last a day
Wants to own a winery in Mexico	She’s happily married with a Mexican, he loves her in a quiet way and they do wine tasting for groups. She gets bored.
Wants to be a parent	She becomes a mother to a young girl but the attachment comes hard and she never really loves the child she didn’t give birth to
Wants to be an Olympic swimmer to make her dad proud	She becomes an Olympic swimmer and her dad is alive and proud of her but married to another woman. Her mother, after her dad divorced her, becomes a recluse and dies alone. Regrets all along. Her Ted talk was all about paths not taken.
Wants to be a rock star	She is super famous and even gets to break up with her favourite movie star. She feels that her songs reach loads of people but with all the love comes fan hate and also her brother dies of an overdose and she nearly passes as well.
Wants to accept a coffee from a neighbour she’s only seen when running	They end up married, with a kid – living in Cambridge of all places. She teaches at university but takes time off to write a psychology book. She’s never really settled but she last here the longest
Wants to be an Arctic explorer	She’s there, in the Arctic, doing geological studies that she knows nothing about. Fights a bear off and feels a strong desire to keep on living. Meets a fellow jumper or slider as they call themselves and finds sex so bad that she ends up in the library again.
Wants her cat to be an indoor cat only	Because her cat died just before she killed herself. She now finds herself in a reality where her cat was still dead (and lived more).
Wants to travel to Australia and become a surfer	Sees Bondi beach, but is terribly alone. Her friend that she went to see is dead in a travel accident where she tried to come to her wedding. New friends out there and a more relaxed lifestyle but in the end it’s not for her.

Nora has a lot of “grass is always greener” syndrome, and admittedly, her character isn’t always likable. As she travels through time and space, seeing what other lives could have been, she slowly deepens her gratitude for her own existence, the one she was so willing to leave behind. In that realization, her demeanour changes, and I found myself rooting for her by the end.

Concept was good – you pick a book from this conceptual place and it’s a story you have never read about yourself. Theoretically, the book was only written to the point where she picked it up so, in theory, she could have written whatever ending she wanted to the story. But she was never satisfied and wanted more. That’s the problem when your happiness is coming from external factors.

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it.”