Did not realize this was a kit. Returned without using the materials as I wanted to read the book and am not interested in the book club kit.
I did borrow the actual book from my library and found it to be an unbelievable premise.

I loved this book so much. When Nora has given up and decided that her life is meaningless, she tries to end it all. Traveling to the Midnight Library, where her kind, old, school librarian, Mrs. Elm guides her through the aisles of her life to see which iteration would best suit her. This is such a profound story of mental health, resilience, and love. Some books find you in the right time of your life, and this was one of them. So outstanding and unforgettable!

Thank you NetGalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Not sure about the added pictures? This was different than what I thought it was going to be, my fault for not recognizing this is for a book club but still an odd little book.

Maybe that's what lives were, though. Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty. Maybe that was the only meaning that mattered. To be the world, witnessing itself' - @mattzhaig , The Midnight Library.
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Its very rare that I quote this much from a book but a book of this magnitude of positivity mingled with truth ( which is harsh ) has left me dumbfounded. I have loved the book to bits.
Nora finding no way of respite in life decides to end it and lands herself in the infinite possibilities of The Midnight Library lying between life and death. There Mrs Elm guides her to the book of her regrets and if had beens of her lif and as she chooses each one and moves in and out of a plethora of emotions and lives out numbers of her choices and different lives , she seems to be not satisfied in any. In some she s a geologist, an international rockstar, an Olympic gold medalist swimmer while in some married to who she declined, father is alive, mother is alive, good terms with brother but she ebbs out of all of them to land into the library of choices again!
Infact she emerges into her best thought life but she ebbs out of it too! Why? What is it so of life?
The answer for me is 'The only way to learn is to live'
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After reading this want to all the books by Mr Haig and if you need any positivity in your life right now, dont look further!

Best read yet!!! LOVED IT!!!!! Will most definitely be a classic one day a very easy and addictive read

Make sure you read the title, this is not the actual book, but worth getting if you are reading this book and hosting book club, welcome to my world!. It will now appear as if I am learned and have done ample research on thought provoking questions. A win for me, world domination next! Not sure I needed the photos, but not complaining.

I’m an idiot and heartbroken. I’ve wanted to read this ‘book’ for so long so I’ve been looking everywhere (everywhere legal of course) so I can to try to get a copy. I’ve looked everywhere! Tried Goodreads giveaways way back, nope. Tried NG and EW, nope. Tried my local library for an ebook because I don’t have a place to live permanently so I’m all about ebooks and right now I’m in quarantine, yay 🥳😑 I literally just signed up for a library membership for a copy of “The Maid” and 3 other titles, but it’s a 22 week wait. I just left their site looking for the book that goes with this and there are 35 before me so about 35 weeks out??!! Ugh 😩 lastly I tried Amazon hoping for Kindle Unlimited miracle, nope. I literally have a dollar and change in my pocketbook and cannot work anymore due to extremely poor health issues so that’s also, nope.

Why am I sharing this? Because I feel like an idiot for seeing this cover then “read now” and not paying attention to anything other than my facial expression of excitement 😲😳 <——sort of looked like that and the wind 💨 was knocked right out of my lungs 🫁 when I saw it was the book club kit. I’m going to cry 😭 hard after I save this. This is my life. Every single nook and cranny to be found…….this is the kind of thing that’s taken over my once always positive life outlook. I used to be a very active part of this fantastic bookish world……welcomed in with opened arms and drowning in books by the hundreds. Now I’m old, disabled, homeless, and recovering from 20 years of abuse and a crazy divorce which the abuse continues 5 1/2 years later.

‘SO’, now that I’ve typed out all that stuff most people don’t care about and because in this world it’s just my dog and me, for the most part……….I really needed to vent and since the last thing that just broke my heart was about a book, I figured why not vent here. This thread is so long I’m banking on it never being seen by others readers. It’s pathetic, but when you have everything systematically taken from you in brutal ways…….ya kinda just stop caring about what you say when it’s to a group of people who share the same love for books.

I’m so sorry I jumped and downloaded this without making sure it was the actual book. I’ll delete this from my device. So stupid I am………the search goes on. I’ve resorted to Microsoft rewards points for daily quizzes and searches to put towards Amazon gift cards. 4 days in when I get 13,000 points I’ll have a $10 gift card…….I only have 900 points 😬 for $10. If there’s a lottery for kindle books I hope to win enough to carry me through for a long time to come.

Five stars because it was my mistake and the book is probably a five star read anyway.

Very helpful for my book club! I enjoyed learning a little about the author as well. This helped us to navigate our first meeting after reading the Midnight library and prompted conversations throughout the night. Awesome!

wasn't sure what to expect, and although it stated the actual book wasn't included (confusing) I did expect more that a table of contents and several pages of part of a man's pictures. Odd.

I enjoyed this but it was not what I expected. At time I felt that I was reading a self help book. 3 stars

This book club guide is meant to accompany the book when reading in a group. It includes some questions to discuss, and an interview with the author. A very interesting addition to the book.

This was a very helpful guide for my buddy read on The Midnight Library! If you wanted to read the book and have a discussion about it with friends or a book club, this is the guide for you to help start off that discussion!

I found the concept of The Midnight Library -- a place where, when one is essentially in limbo after dying in the "real world" but has yet to pass onto a permanent death, can look at the lives of their other selves and can stay in the life that makes them the most happy -- intriguing. However, I think the execution was not entirely what I was hoping it would be. I appreciate how Haig weaves philosophy throughout the book, leaving the reader to be reflective about the lives that we currently lead and COULD lead, as well as thinking about what makes a life and what is the most important to make that life worth living. However, I found the book to be uninteresting at times, but that just may not be the experience of others. Regardless, overall, the book was most entertain as a general interest/fiction book, and I think it would appeal to wide variety of audiences, even if one is not a fantasy reader (which I am not).

I downloaded this book club kit as I have every intention to read this book in the nearby future in my club. The questions seem all interesting and very much related to the book, so... five stars!

This Book Club Kit was a great addition to the book The Midnight Library. Besides giving some questions for discussion at book club, it also features a question and answer with the author, Matt Haig, which adds insight into his characters and reasoning behind the writing of this book. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Library Resources for access to these materials.. #NetGalley #BookClubKit:TheMidnightLibrary

Haven’t read the book - downloaded thinking it was included In this download buy these are just questions for book clubs

This is a really great tool for book clubs discussing The Midnight Library. It is perfect for starting discussions about the topics of the books and getting a better understanding!

This is a fantastic accompaniment to the book and for any book club. It includes through-provoking questions and the Q&A with the author is a really nice bonus to bring to a book club. Thank you NetGalley for this!

Every once in a while you read a book that you know is going to stay in your mind for a really long time. It may not be the perfect book or the easiest to read, but it will make you question the meaning of life and change how you live moving forward.

Between life and death, there is a library. Up until now, Nora Seed's life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. When she finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. Each one contains a different life, a possible world in which she made different choices that played out an infinite number of ways, affecting everyone she knew as well as many people she's never met. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every decision she regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

The Midnight Library immersed me in a life outside of my own. In my recent review of WandaVision, I mentioned that watching Wanda and Vision live so many different lives made me forget about how boring and repetitive mine is right now. That is exactly what The Midnight Library did. Nora See jumped into different versions of her life where she made different decisions than in her "root life." She was a lead singer in a band, a glaciologist, a mother, a professional swimmer, a winemaker, and so much more. All of these were made available to her through books. In the end, the journey she took from life to life taught her that "We don't have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite." In a way, every book/movie/show ever made is a part of a worldwide Midnight Library. Every time you dive into a new book or movie, you step into the shoes of a person outside yourself. You could be reading about someone extremely similar to you or someone who stands completely outside of your comfort zone. I never thought about literature and entertainment this way until Matt Haig made it clear with this book. I can say with confidence that The Midnight Library will get anyone who is already a reader out of a reading slump and those who aren't into reading hooked.

Nora taught me quite a lot in this book. She goes from looking at life from a depressed and suicidal perspective to one of hope and possibility, and it was beautiful. I won't give any spoilers as to where she ends up at the end, but the ending is not just a set of pages, but an experience that will leave your mouth drop and your heart full of happiness.

Whether this is your first life, your only life, or if you are a slider jumping into multiple realities where you made different decisions like Nora, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is a book worth your time. This will forever be a novel I will recommend on Goodreads to anyone going through a tough time or to those wanting to learn a little more about "the meaning of life." I think about places like the Midnight Library a lot. What place do we go to between life and death if there is one? Is it a black hole? A white room? A field of grass? A DVD store? A library? Did I have any regrets? Did I live my happiest life? Was life really worth living? Up until now, death has been the biggest fear of mine. Matt Haig gives me hope that there is a beautiful place in-between life and death. One where I can look onto other lives and wonder what I could have done differently. Maybe there is a world where I became an Olympic volleyball player. Maybe I could have been a journalist for The New York Times. We will never know what other lives we could have lived, so there is no point in wasting our one shot pining for them Take in the life you are living right now. Give your parents a hug the next time you see them. Buy a cake for yourself, even if it is not your birthday. Wear that bathing suit you have been too scared to try on and post an Instagram photo of it. Rock that job interview. Round up for charity the next time you shop. Go on that trip you have been wanting to plan. I only have this life, but books like The Midnight Library let me experience a little more.

Favorite Quotes:
“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.”

“A person was like a city. You couldn't let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole. There may be bits you don't like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs, but the good stuff makes it worthwhile.”

“And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness forever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.”

“Sometimes just to say your own truth out loud is enough to find others like you.”

“Want,’ she told her, in a measured tone, ‘is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely.”

“Maybe that's what all lives were, though. Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty. Maybe that was the only meaning that mattered. To be the world, witnessing itself.”

I really liked this version. It has all information to steer a book club meaningful. I love the possible questions I was able to ask in our book club meeting. Furthermore, this version is very tastefully designed and very helpful overall.