The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

I really liked this book and there were moments when I wanted very much to love it, but never quite got there. As a mental health professional, it deals with depression head on, and there are no false notes in the book in that respect. The book is part what-if, and part the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future, but with more choices and a multiverse of possibilities. Nora is a young woman who decides she isn’t cut out for life. She just lost her job and cat, has fallen out with her brother and best friend and generally assumes she’s a giant disappointment. So she decides to die. After attempting to end her life, instead of waking up dead, Nora wakes up in the Midnight Library: an immense space filled with shelves of books that stretch endlessly. She’s greeted by her school librarian, Mrs. Elm, who was always kind to her. While she’s in the Midnight Library, Mrs. Elm tells her, she’s preserved from death; this is an opportunity to decide how — and if — she wants to live. Everyone’s life could have gone an infinite number of ways, and each book in the library contains the story of that life. Nora can visit as many as she wants to find out what her life would have been like if she had made different decisions. There are a dizzying array of possibilities, and while all of this is fantastical, the ending is very much a reality.