This book deserves a blanket, a fireplace and a bowl of mashed potatoes.
Okay, that last part got weird. But, this is how I enjoyed most of it: on my couch, snuggled in tight, full of (really good) mashed potatoes over the Thanksgiving weekend. It just feels like you should read this book in a cozy place, where you can properly contemplate the choices you've made in your life.
It's literally a book about choices. Nora Seed wants to die and, early on in this book, she tries to end her own life. But, instead of it being 'over' she ends up in a magical library, curated by a woman who showed her kindness at a difficult time in her life. That woman, her former teacher, explains to her that she's essentially in something like purgatory. She's not gone from the world just yet. Instead, she has a chance to open some of the endless books in this library and see how her life would have been different if she made other choices. What would life be like if she married that man/moved to the country/stayed in that band/followed her passion? How would her life be different? Would she truly ever be able to find happiness?
You've heard this story before. In A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, Sliding Doors, countless others. What makes this fresh is Nora. Her true sadness in the beginning, her loneliness, is heartbreaking. And even as she glimpses these other lives, you wonder what - if anything - would ever truly bring her happiness.
This novel doesn't break any ground, but it's a satisfying reminder of how we should examine our own lives and not always believe the choices we didn't make are the better ones. There are profound reminders here to live in the moment and value what's here rather than wishing it all away for the unknown.
It feels especially important in the midst of a tough year and a pandemic to remember what we have and value the choices we did make. As for me, I'm choosing to warm up the rest of those mashed potatoes.
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