I’m not sure if this is something I’m going to keep up, but for the three books I’d gotten through reading, I had enough to say that warranted writing about them. For better and for worse.
We had our annual used book sale at the local library at the start of the month and I came away with over a dozen books. I figured they’d keep me occupied for a while but at the rate I’m going, it might not take as long as I thought.
And yeah, there will be some spoilers. But you could make the argument that some of these books are so predictable, you’ll see the ending coming a mile away.
I’ll go through them starting from worst to first- they also happen to be in the reverse order I read them, so the most recent book will be first.
“The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig
I use the Notes app on my phone A LOT. Two of them include lists of books I want to read, usually ones I see on the shelves at Walmart and Target that I plan to return to at some point.
This book was the only one I found at that book sale that I’d had saved in my phone. The cashier that checked me out also commented that it was REALLY good and her book club enjoyed it.
Maybe the book I read before this one skewed my perception… but I wound up not feeling the same way. In fact I’m not sure if this is a book I’d read again. It was interesting reading some of the reviews on Goodreads (a book-related site that I discovered through Facebook years ago) and what other people didn’t like about it. Some found the protagonist and the characters boring. Some compared it to a Hallmark movie because of its predictability. Others called it out for being something different than how it presented itself.
The basic premise- Nora has hit rock bottom in what she thought to be an unfulfilling life. She stumbles into the titular library where she’s able to try other lives on, lives that branch from decisions she failed to follow through on.
I forget how long ago this book appeared on my radar and even what intrigued me about it. Probably the idea of trying other lives on to see how things would play out. Sometime between then and now, I also saw the movie “Everything, Everywhere All at Once,” which talks about multiverses that stem from different paths the lead character could’ve taken and in her main life, she literally accomplished nothing in her life and that’s why that was the ultimate version of her.
To cut to the chase, I got to this book and it was a series of rude awakenings. I didn’t realize that Nora got to the midnight library because she committed suicide. The pages that lead her to that decision, each chapter starting with a time stamp “before she decided to die.” The book I read before this had some heavy subject matter as well so my timing [in all likelihood] could not have been worse.
Some reviews talked about how this book misrepresented depression as a choice instead of an illness caused by a chemical imbalance. Or that it was a self-help book disguised as a work of fiction. I can’t help but agree. I saw the phrase “trigger warning” used once or twice and I absolutely agree with that. The first half of the book, which takes us up to Nora being a glacier scientist, had this suffocating air of depression that was difficult to shake off. It’s hard not be a little concerned that, for as many people as this book had the potential to help, this book could make someone already feeling low feel even worse.
In another way, it was also sad that most of these lives had potential… but the trade-off was someone in her family suffering a fate she didn’t expect. Like her mom dying earlier, her dad being alive longer but having an affair, her brother dying of his own overdose… so that sucks.
One caveat about these lives that annoyed me and it made it difficult to believe any of them would stick: Nora would come into these lives where her conscience was inhabiting another body. Meaning she didn’t have access to the memories of her self in these lives. This led to a lot of awkward conversations with people. She didn’t know what was going on or the depth of knowledge this version of her had. And when she tried to figure out the details, the people around her would treat her like she’s crazy.
By the end, she found the perfect life… and then decided she didn’t want to take it away from this version of herself. Like she was successful but had physically done nothing to earn it. This is where the Hallmark movie territory comes in. Other people mentioned “it’s a wonderful life”- not a far cry, in all honesty. I had my suspicions about the ending early on, but nothing confirmed it more than this final life did. Especially when she saw the impact she had on two of the people she interacted with regularly in her daily life.
All in all, I’m glad I made it to the ending because the payoff was huge. And there were some interesting quotes from Henry David Thoreau and motivational speeches.
I just don’t think I could make it through another trip through the library and being in this particular headspace a second time.
My book of regrets wouldn’t be as heavy and suffocating as Nora’s. But this book sorta reminded me of some things my life still lacks and I don’t feel like I’m any closer to achieving any of it. The top of this list being places I REALLY want to visit and for various reasons, that just hasn’t happened…
“Lifeline” by Abbey Lee Nash
This is going to sound really bizarre… or just really bad taste considering its subject matter.
But this book was ADDICTING. And unlike “the midnight library,” I’d definitely read it again. But I’d probably follow it up with something a lot less intense.
The book revolves around Eli- all-American teenage boy, Mr. Popular and captain of the lacrosse team. Eli’s also a drug addict and an accidental overdose lands him in a 28-day rehab program.
On paper, this character would written off as being arrogant and beyond help. But I don’t know- I found his struggles oddly relatable. If only the part of him that feels weighed down by other’s expectations. In high school and college, that was a huge thing for me. I was always an A/B student, but when my grades slipped below that, rescuing my grade point average had its pressures and difficulties.
But in every other way, we literally have nothing in common. His biggest struggle comes from his family. His dad died when he was younger and since his mom remarried and had a second kid with her new husband, he’d felt out of place. Like the three of them were the perfect family and he felt like an outsider. Actually, some of his insecurities are similar to Kevin from “This is Us.” So maybe that’s why Eli was enjoyable to read about. Even when he was being a complete ass.
Then he gets to rehab (which he’s sent to in lieu of jail time for unlawful possession among other things) and meets an interesting cast of characters. With his therapist (nicknamed Fish), he breaks new ground… after a lot of resisting, he finally admits that he has a problem. As to whether he succeeded in “putting his faith in a greater power” for step 2, it remains to be seen. One of these sessions are between him and his mom with Dr. Fish mediating. And he learns that his dad was actually an addict and that’s how he died. By the end of the book, Eli also gains new respect for his stepfather, realizing how much he actually cares about him. That particular epiphany, if nothing else, warrants a return visit to this book in the future.
Another character we see a lot of is Libby. It’s never implicitly explained but the physical evidence suggests that she’s there because she’s a cutter. Her arms are covered with razor scars. Early on, things with her and Eli are rocky. He tries to be friendly but often winds up saying the wrong thing and pisses her off. At one point, he compares her mood swings to Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction.”
Later on, her story arc was giving me flashbacks of the short-lived Fox Series “Red Band Society.” There was a girl who had an eating disorder and had been at the hospital for a long time. But in the series finale, she comes home and the final scene is her having a bulimic episode and she’s dying on the bathroom floor. To this day, I still wish they hadn’t cancelled that show so we could find out for sure whether she died.
Libby gets to the end of her 28 days and comes home. Then she returns a short time later after having another episode. However, during a conversation she has with Eli when he sneaks in to see her in detox, she says some things that suggest something else is going on at home that isn’t being addressed. Her mom has a boyfriend she doesn’t get along with and she returns to find that he’s still in her life. Which leads me to suspect the boyfriend assaulted her and has on multiple occasions.
If Eli’s continued journey to recovery isn’t enough to make me want a sequel, that would be… this book has a good ending overall, but there’s still some questions I wouldn’t mind having answers to.
“The People We Met on Vacation” by Emily Henry
I didn’t get this one at the book sale and I technically started reading it in May.
We were at the Honolulu airport on the way back from vacation and mom suggested we check out the bookstore right outside our gate. This is the first time I’d personally bought a book from an airport- my mom and dad had done it a few times in the past, my dad especially.
Best decision ever!
I’m going to remember the traveling escapades of Alex and Poppy for a long time.
The two of them met at college and despite having nothing in common, they become the best of friends. Even though their post-college lives have taken them to different places, they have their annual tradition of taking a summer vacation together.
But when the story itself begins, they haven’t spoken to each other in 2 years and this latest trip was Poppy’s attempt to rekindle her friendship with Alex.
The chapters oscillate from “This Summer” to however many summers ago and they have a lot of interesting adventures. And of course they meet a lot of interesting people. My favorite inside joke was inspired by a salesperson who tried to sell them on a $21,000 avant garde sofa with the phrase “doesn’t it just speak to you”? And they spent the whole vacation saying “this speaks to me” about random things that they find fascinating.
If I had anything negative to say, the third act is a little rocky and you’re not sure if there’s going to be a happy ending or not. Things wind up being annoyingly predictable but there’s still plenty of surprises to keep things interesting.
Also- they spent a lot of the book building up to Croatia, the vacation 2 summers ago when they stopped talking to each other… they get to the Croatia chapter after having a major falling out in the present, and it just fell totally flat. Like all of that hype built up to nothing special. Although Alex struggling to sneak away from the photographer they were traveling with because they wound up rooming together on the trip, that was kinda funny.
Alex and Poppy are so great together and so fun to travel with. But the traveling part itself was equally as entertaining. After the end of the story, the author talked about writing this during 2020 lockdown time and how she hoped it’d help people struggling with the inability to travel. And had I read this in 2021, I probably would’ve appreciated it even more for that aspect alone.
The Musings of DreamyPopRoyalty 