crabbygirl reviewed The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Review of 'The Midnight Library' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
what a load of crap!
the main character tries to kill herself and ends up being able to live numerous lives where one regret or another is resolved. does she have a bunch of mediocre lives? not until much, much later. The lives that ARE on display are the elite kind, where she's an Olympian or a rock star or doing research in Antarctica, or living as a beach bum in sunny Australia. everybody and their uncle knows it's going to end a-la Jimmy Stewart / It's a Wonderful Life. Are the majority of readers really walking around with all these regrets, in need of a pep talk that this is the only life you've been given? what utter dreck!
maybe I'm too old for this shit. maybe you can read a few of these philosophy-lite cum barely novel and then you hit your limit: The Alchemist was my first; …
what a load of crap!
the main character tries to kill herself and ends up being able to live numerous lives where one regret or another is resolved. does she have a bunch of mediocre lives? not until much, much later. The lives that ARE on display are the elite kind, where she's an Olympian or a rock star or doing research in Antarctica, or living as a beach bum in sunny Australia. everybody and their uncle knows it's going to end a-la Jimmy Stewart / It's a Wonderful Life. Are the majority of readers really walking around with all these regrets, in need of a pep talk that this is the only life you've been given? what utter dreck!
maybe I'm too old for this shit. maybe you can read a few of these philosophy-lite cum barely novel and then you hit your limit: The Alchemist was my first; I think I liked it. Hector and the Search of Happiness came next; it was tolerable. you can even put A Man Called Ove (which itself is a variation of the Hundred Year Old Man Climbed out the Window and Disappeared) in this category. Major Pettigrew, Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. that dumb one with the pregnant teen befriending the widower.... ya-da-ya-da-ya-da: life is for the living! Keep living! (but at least those other books did it without using the word 'fuck' multiple times; I'm so sick of it's au-courant use as emphasis and to telegraph they are so cool and with it. it's lazy, and boorish.
