It's Mrs Elm who Nora meets in that fantastical place called The Midnight Library and tells her that she has a choice of just not "parallel lives. Some are more ....... perpendicular". When she explains The Book of Regrets, we are prompted to think about are own. But these other lives for Nora are not all what they might seem. Even though I was looking forward to Nora's other life with The Labyrinths, it was not what I expected. When Nora meets Hugo, there are quite deep philosophical conversations about what it is to exist. And we are treated to bits about "open quantum wave function" and "quantum superposition" whatever those might be.
Matt Haig is good at combining a decent narrative with clever prose that, though written in the third person, sometimes feels like the first. Nice short chapters, each with a title. A little bit sentimental at the end, but who doesn't like a bit of sentimentality. However, upon reviewing this novel again for book club, I did find the reasons for Nora's exit from these "trial" lives too lightweight. In fact the I just didn't get why she wanted to end her life at the beginning. All this should have been a lot darker, but I guess it was not that kind of book. A comfortable read instead.
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