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The Midnight Library
- Narrated by: Carey Mulligan
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's Summary
THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON
READERS' MOST LOVED BOOK OF 2021
WINNER OF THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR FICTION
Nora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live?
Critic Reviews
"Beautiful." (Jodi Picoult)
"Uplifting." (i)
"Absorbing.' (New York Times)
More from the same
What listeners say about The Midnight Library
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-27-21
WHERE IS THE TRIGGER WARNING⚠️
I stopped at Chaptet 2. There should have been a warning. I HATE this! Don't recommend if you even remotely care about animals.
8 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- J E Law
- 02-25-21
Laugh, cry, read this book!
Really enjoyed this book and the concept of exploring the regrets people have in their life. One of those books that stays in your head long after the final chapter. It’s dark, but funny, sad, but joyful. I couldn’t stop listening it’s compelling. Made me laugh and cry all at once.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- fiona
- 01-01-21
Beautiful read
I am sorry I waited so long to read it, loved it !! Would highly recommend
2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- northernlass
- 01-30-21
Couldn't stop listening
I loved the idea of the midnight library. It captured me and i was hooked.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Elle
- 01-19-21
Beautiful read
It was easy to anticipate much of the storyline, but in this case that didn't take anything away from the experience.
Carey Mulligan was flawless except for her Newfoundland pronunciation.
Matt Haig is fast becoming one of my favourite authors in both adult and children's fiction. His style is imaginative yet grounded in a wonderful fashion.
I would recommend this book to anyone.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Grace
- 01-17-21
Loved it
Interesting, imaginative, meaningful and gently intriguing.
Carey Mulligan's narration is exquisite, brilliant,
Audible needs more talented narrators like Carey Mulligan, it makes all the difference.
Highly recommended .
1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 12-27-20
easy listening
maybe it was the expectation created around the book, but I didn't think it was brillient. It was entertaining, so happy to give it a 4. The narration was extremely good
1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Barry McWilliams
- 12-12-20
Loved the story, lukewarm about the ending.
The book felt exciting & compelling, but the ending felt a bit pat. It was the „nice, expected“ ending. I guess I wanted something more surprising.
I enjoyed the time I spent listening to it.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-14-20
An interesting and meaningful book
Thoroughly enjoyed every second, couldn’t put the book down- highly recommended, Althpughly NOT for children,
1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 10-07-20
One of the best books I've ever read.
This book is absolutely wonderful. It shook me awake. It made me cry. It reminded me why I'm happy to be alive. (And Carey Mulligan's narration is PERFECT.)
1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Joan
- 09-04-20
Fantasy may be hard to take if you’re depressed
Please scroll through all of the many reviews on here as there are mixed feelings about this one.
Carey Mulligan is a superb narrator and really enhanced the book.
It seemed more like a young adult read, simplistic and aimed at a young teenage audience perhaps?
If you are positive and value life then you may enjoy the premise of this story and get hope and strength from its message.
If you are struggling and finding life incredibly challenging you may be brought down by the simplistic fantasy and feel bad about yourself because life is not easy.
Matt Haig has his own mental health struggles and I get why he wrote this book, but it won’t be for everyone.
I know this will be made into a film, it is ripe for a Christmas blockbuster.
Most reviewers absolutely love this story, some find it too sickly sweet or are bored with the daft fantasy. Some people will despair that their lives don’t match up.
I am a mixture of all of the above!! Glad I heard it but wouldn’t want to listen again and not happy about the way it was written but realise that it will make a lot of people happy.
542 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- The Curator
- 09-29-20
An excellent but difficult read if you aren’t perfect.
Disclaimer I only got to Chapter 15 but I couldn’t go on. The book is very well written and a fascinating concept but it just bit too close to the bone for me. The idea that one can change lives and get rid of regrets just had me overthinking my own life and what I would change. This alone made suicide sound quite a good idea (in theory! I’m not about to try it) and in the end it just made me too uncomfortable to continue.
142 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Chris Cunningham
- 08-15-20
A touching look at depression and regret.
Matt Haig writes beautifully - I didn’t realise how touched I would be by this book. Throughout I found myself considering my own choices - not my past regrets, but the decisions I can make from this point forwards. Carey’s narration is outstanding - a well suited pick.
127 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michelle Shepherd
- 08-14-20
Delightful and exciting
Purchased this the day it was released and have just finished it. I loved it. Carey Mulligan narrates with great empathy and keeps you enthralled. Who hasnt wondered how their lives would have turned out if they'd made other decisions. This book allows the main character, Nora to see how her life would have turned out if she had said yes, or chose a different path. Worth a listen.
113 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- rosie123
- 09-02-20
Overly sentimental and became tedious.
Basically, the story went on far too long. Each life was unnecessarily detailed and often trite. The basic idea was excellent and with heavy editing would have been far more enjoyable. Sadly, the ending was entirely predictable and disappointing, although with tighter and less cloyingly sentimental writing, would have been better.
91 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Vee
- 08-16-20
Beautiful story, well read
Such a great idea, well executed and a really wonderful story that flows well and kept me hooked. Matt Haig writes with humour and sadness in equal measure and his core beliefs shine through in this lovely tale. The importance of kindness, love, caring about the planet and not comparing yourself to others. It is read beautifully by Carey. I needed this story, thank you!
84 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Miss Natasha GM Williams
- 08-15-20
Brilliant and interesting.
Interesting look at depression and the regrets we all have. The story takes you on a brilliant journey of Nora’s self discovery through many life times. I found it uplifting and powerful, as someone who struggles with her own mental health the ending was empowering.
62 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 03-16-21
Boring
If parallel universes do exist I envy the version of me that did not listen to this book. Tedious and unimaginative.
58 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mrs R G
- 08-18-20
wonderful
I listened on audible and the narrator was excellent! A lovely tale to make you think about your regrets. Very early on I knew where this book would go but that possibly comes from being a huge Matt Haig fan. It didn’t detract from the story at all and I loved the journey of the protagonist. I feel he really poured himself into this book because it’s beautiful and so delicate in its construction.
Choose this, everyone can and should enjoy it. I’ve recommended it already!
46 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kat S
- 08-15-20
Finished Too Quickly
I really enjoyed this book, so much so I couldn't stop listening to it and I finished it too soon. Cary Mulligan's narration was excellent and perfect for Norma's voice and the concept of the book was brilliant.
40 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Kris
- 05-14-21
Tacky
I don’t usually say much on this site, but I have to be honest - I spent as much time cringe-laughing as I did listening to this book.
The premise of the story is sound enough. Unfortunately, the plot is so underdeveloped that it reads as though a junior high school student wrote it (one who wasn’t likely to pursue writing at that) and the end result was something of a hybrid between a hallmark sympathy / graduation card and a tediously-long dinner time sermon from your recently-woke second cousin about how he found inspiration and now needs to mansplain it to you.
Half chapters of repetitive platitudes are flogged like a dead horse and things that are perfectly clear to most readers are elaborated on (again, mansplained) to the extent that you wonder if this isn’t in fact a transcript intended simply so that the author can hear himself writing. We get it. You’ve found a simple kind of spirituality and now want to explain it to us as if we’ve never had an existential or philosophical thought in our lives. Such spiritual insights are delivered in a strange mashup, where inspiration and creative prose somehow gets stuck in a rusty old engine and we listen to the equivalent of a reading of a car manual until the existential moment is over.
The narrator does her best, but it is very difficult to make something of this. I am pretty sure I was giggling too much to pay attention to the extremely long-winded and completely overdone conclusion of the story, but if you’re looking for an ending that your English teacher would have lynched you for, look no further.
I love this podcast called ‘My Dad Wrote a P*rno’. This reads like that but there is, apparently no intention to be funny.
Good luck!
120 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Unbiased Review
- 12-19-20
Bored
What could have been a good story became dull and tedious by the amount of prattling on and lack of depth. I guessed the end well before reaching it and I didn’t enjoy the journey getting there.
52 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- S. Parker
- 12-12-20
My favourite book of 2020
Having experienced depression this book has served both as a masterpiece of fiction but also self help. It is exquisitely written too. No other book of 2020 has come close to it for me. I listened over two days whereas usually an audiobook might take weeks. I just couldn’t stop listening.
40 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Enrique V.
- 05-13-21
Slow burn, boring boring stuff
wish I never started this...
listened to it in 1.4x speed so that it would feel like a "normal speed" audiobook, still couldn't go through the whole thing, gave up 3/4 through.
Story about a girl with a boring life, going into alternate boring lives through a magic library. Don't waste your time
32 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anne
- 09-09-20
Loved it
An idea we've all thought about, beautifully manifested through a simple story, with an endearing protagonist and science and philosophy woven gently through. Carey Mulligan's narration is brilliant.
32 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- JANET TAYLOR
- 05-22-21
I can’t stop thinking about this story
Such an unusual story.
I loved how different it was and it made me think about the other lives I could of had. I highly recommend
27 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Justine
- 08-20-20
Didn’t want it to end!
I loved this, Matt Haig at his absolute best. Makes you think (as usual) and full of his trademark honesty and ultimate hope. Fantastic narration too.
27 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 09-05-20
Novel concept
Loved the Midnight Library.....
A timely reminder of the importance of appreciating exactly where we are, right now, today.
21 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 06-05-21
Tedious, didactic, cliched
No nuance or elegance to this story, message and 'meaning' are slathered on thick at the expense of character and plot. If you fancy being hit over the head with a message then sure. The bad poetry and philosophy riddled throughout. I rolled my eyes so often and so hard I thought I might detach my retinas. Even the delightful Carey Mulligan couldn't redeem this for me. Listened at high speed and still couldn't wait for it to finish.
19 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- KJ
- 12-17-20
Fell flat
Not sure what the fuss is about. Average, slightly long-winded story. I was eager for it to end.
16 people found this helpful
