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The Midnight Library follows the story of Nora Seed as she struggles to find meaning and direction in her life while grappling with overwhelming grief, despair, and regret. As the novel begins, Nora has lost her beloved cat, which sets off a series of unfortunate events that drive her deeper into despair and hopelessness. Believing that she is of no use to anyone and that the pain of living outweighs the pain her death will cause others, she attempts to kill herself. She wakes up in the Midnight Library, a place between life and death. Guided by her high school librarian, Mrs. Elm, Nora travels through myriad versions of her life, searching for one that feels like home. As she cycles through different selves, Nora begins to release her heaviest regrets, let go of inherited ideas about success and happiness, and narrow in on the kind of life she wants to lead.
The inciting incident of the novel takes place when Nora attempts to kill herself. This act of despair is instigated both by her life circumstances and her depressed perspective. She has gone through a series of traumas, from losing her mother to losing her job, all of which accumulate to make Nora feel increasingly isolated and contribute to her dark perspective on life. Her grief and depression prevent her from seeing the good in herself and others, and she is saddled with heavy regrets, believing she’s made a mess of her life. She blames herself for every negative aspect of her life, thinking she failed her ex-fiancé by leaving him two days before their wedding, her brother by quitting their up-and-coming rock band, and her father by quitting a potential career as a professional swimmer. Nora can’t see any way forward, and she decides to end her life.
When Nora finds herself in the Midnight Library with Mrs. Elm, she begins a journey of self-discovery that systematically dismantles the regrets and false beliefs that drove her to suicide. The halting of her wristwatch provides Nora an opportunity to stay suspended in time as she explores her infinite possibilities. Visiting the life in which she stays with Dan relieves her of the illusion that they could have been happy together. Searching for a life where her cat lives reveals that she couldn’t have prevented his death. Similarly, experiencing the successful life of the Olympian swimmer teaches her that nothing she could do would ever make her father happy. She also learns that success, as defined by her father, doesn’t bring her happiness or allow her to escape from depression and loneliness. As she moves from life to life, Nora realizes that her regrets have been based on faulty assumptions. She also realizes that she has spent much of her life chasing other people’s dreams and following blueprints laid out for her by the people she loves.
The rising action occurs when Nora visits her life as a glaciologist and has a near-death experience. As she’s standing on the stark glacial landscape, facing a huge, hungry polar bear that could end her life, Nora realizes that she keenly wants to live. She fights against the bear, driving him away with loud noises, and fights against her fear, commanding herself to stay grounded in bravery for survival. Confronted with the possibility of a death she didn’t choose, Nora realizes that she wants to find a life that she does choose. She emerges from her brush with death to find a fellow traveler between lives, Hugo. In their conversations about the nature of sliding between lives, Nora glimpses the vast mystery and unknowability of life. When she goes back to the Midnight Library, she is changed and begins to travel between her lives with more energy, curiosity, and drive to find meaning.
Nora visits many lives in her quest to understand herself and what it means to be alive, and in each one, she’s left with a hunger for more and a curiosity about what else another life might bring. Though Nora still struggles to even articulate what it is she’s searching for. She has every possibility at her fingertips and can have anything she wants, yet she continues her restless search, driven by an unsatisfiable hunger. Her relentless pursuit suggests that what Nora is looking for isn’t an external change and can’t be answered by altering her career, her relationships, or her surroundings. She needs to connect with a different internal understanding of herself and the world in order to find satisfaction. After traveling through hundreds of lives, Nora begins to lose her connection to herself and feels as lost as she was when she attempted to end her life. She is challenged to recommit to finding a life she can settle into.
When her hope has almost run out, Nora finds what she believes is the perfect life. She has a good husband and a daughter she adores, she gets to study and teach philosophy, and she writes books for a living. However, none of these factors are what ultimately elevates this life above the others. Nora feels drawn to this life because it is filled with love for her family. She badly wants to stay and feels herself beginning to acclimate to the life. But when she visits the neighborhood of her root life, she begins to understand the ways that her neighbors are suffering without her. This drives home the power of a single life and how erroneous Nora was to ever believe she was worthless. Though she loves the perfect life and wants to stay, she understands that she could never belong, In the same way that the perfect life needs the Nora that belongs there and set the foundation for it, Nora’s root life needs her to see it through.
The climax of the novel comes when Nora returns to the Midnight Library, distraught about leaving her perfect life. She finds that the library is burning down and that she may actually be dying in her root life. The library’s chaotic state suggests that she may have spent too long in the liminal space between life and death, and that though hope is infinite, time is not. As Nora’s watch begins keeping time again, Mrs. Elm encourages her to fight for her life. Nora’s discovery that the book of her root life is blank suggests that her future is still unwritten and is still waiting for her to determine what she wants it to be. By taking decisive action, Nora escapes back into her root life, where she finds herself on the brink of death. Nora survives her suicide attempt and is changed from her experience in the library. In the story’s resolution, Nora reconciles with her brother, reconnects with her best friend, and spends time with the real Mrs. Elm. She learns that the most important thing in life isn’t success, pleasing others, or escaping regrets. It is simply to live with love and kindness for others and for oneself.
