by 
I made a huge mistake.
I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig immediately after finishing Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. One is a dense, literary masterpiece written by a Nobel Prize-winning author, brimming with rich vocabulary, complex themes, and nuanced prose that invites readers to reflect deeply on the meaning of life. The other? A self-help narrative disguised as fiction, oversimplifying the realities of mental health into Instagram-worthy quotes and feel-good clichés.
From Deep Reflection to Shallow Inspiration
Love in the Time of Cholera challenges you. It forces you to read between the lines, grapple with the intricacies of love, obsession, and mortality, and leaves you pondering the weight of time and regret. It trusts the reader to handle ambiguity and complexity.
The Midnight Library, on the other hand, wants to do the same — but it doesn’t trust its audience. Instead, it hands you neatly packaged life lessons wrapped in digestible, motivational soundbites:
- “Never underestimate the big importance of small things.”
- “You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”
- “Regrets don’t leave. They weren’t mosquito bites. They itch forever.”
These are the kind of phrases you’d find plastered over stock photos of sunsets on Pinterest or posted as #MondayMotivation on social media. And while these sentiments might provide a brief moment of comfort, they reduce life’s complexities — and more dangerously, mental health struggles — into oversimplified mantras that don’t hold up in real life.
The Premise: A Dangerous Oversimplification
The premise of The Midnight Library is intriguing at first glance. Nora Seed, the protagonist, finds herself in a liminal space between life and death — the “Midnight Library” — where every book on the shelves represents a different version of her life had she made different choices. She gets the chance to live out these alternate realities, exploring the “what ifs” that have haunted her and ultimately learning that her original life, flawed as it is, was worth living all along.
It’s a concept with enormous potential. Regret, existential despair, and the longing to rewrite the past are deeply relatable themes. But instead of exploring these complexities with nuance, the book offers a simplistic solution: Change your mindset, and you’ll change your life.
The Problem with the “Just Think Positive” Narrative
Matt Haig’s goal was clear — he wanted to translate his own experiences with depression and recovery into a fictional story that would offer hope to those in dark places. And while there’s nothing wrong with that intention, The Midnight Library reduces depression to a matter of perspective. It subtly suggests that if you could just reframe your regrets and learn to see your life as valuable, your mental health would magically improve.
This narrative presents depression as something you can “think” your way out of — as if shifting your perspective and making “better” choices will cure the chemical imbalance in your brain. It perpetuates the harmful belief that depression is a product of bad decisions, and that by simply “choosing” happiness or embracing a more positive outlook, you can overcome it.
Blaming the Individual for Their Mental Health
Here’s the problem: This narrative shifts the burden of recovery entirely onto the individual. It tells readers that they’re responsible for how they feel, implying that if they’re still depressed or struggling, it’s because they haven’t tried hard enough to see things the “right” way. It suggests that their pain is a result of their own poor choices, and that by making different ones, they could have avoided their suffering altogether.
This kind of messaging is not just misguided — it’s dangerous. Depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation are not simply the result of a negative mindset. They’re complex mental health conditions influenced by biology, environment, and life circumstances. Suggesting that people can “mindset” their way out of clinical depression invalidates the very real struggles they face and can leave them feeling even more isolated when these methods inevitably fail.
The Harmful Implication for Suicidal Ideation
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of The Midnight Library is how it approaches suicidal ideation. Nora’s journey begins with her attempting to take her own life, and the narrative implies that all she needed was a shift in perspective to recognize the value of her life. This is an oversimplification that minimizes the gravity of suicidal thoughts and the complexities behind them.
People experiencing suicidal ideation don’t just need a new outlook — they need support, treatment, and professional help. Suggesting that suicidal individuals can simply “find meaning” and choose to live without addressing the deeper issues at play is not only unrealistic but potentially harmful.
Life Isn’t a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
The idea that we can revisit our choices and “fix” our regrets is an alluring fantasy. But real life doesn’t work that way. We don’t get a library full of alternate lives where we can see the outcomes of every decision we’ve ever made. Life is messy, unpredictable, and full of ambiguity — and learning to live with that uncertainty is part of the human experience.
The Midnight Library wants to reassure readers that they’re in control of their own destinies, but in doing so, it ignores the fact that sometimes, life throws us curveballs that no amount of positive thinking can overcome. It disregards the reality that healing is messy, nonlinear, and often requires more than just a shift in mindset.
Good Intentions, Bad Execution
To be fair, I don’t think Matt Haig set out to write a harmful book. His intentions were noble — to offer hope and solace to those who feel lost. But good intentions don’t always translate to good execution. And when it comes to mental health narratives, accuracy matters. Oversimplified solutions can leave vulnerable readers feeling even more isolated when they don’t work, reinforcing feelings of failure and hopelessness.
What We Need Instead
We need more stories that acknowledge the messiness of mental health, that validate the struggles of those living with depression and anxiety without offering easy solutions. We need narratives that show that recovery is a process — often slow, nonlinear, and full of setbacks. And we need to stop romanticizing the idea that a new perspective is all it takes to heal.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a psychologist-in-training, it’s that mental health is never that simple. And neither is life.
