A review by lostlenore_
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
1.0
TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of mental health, suicide and depression
I have zero tolerance for books that don't respect mental health and sell fake guru sh*t. This book encapsulates exactly this and seeing so many reviewers thinking it so good makes me wanna cry. Out of desperation as to the kind of stereotypes we promote because we're either fused with toxic positivity (because it's the right way to address things per the internet and fake gurus) or because we don't have enough knowledge to look past this facade (understandably so, as seeking mental health support is still considered a taboo in our society.)
This book is so badly written in the sense that the plot device is the MC wanting to kill herself, finally succeeding and ending up in a sort of purgatory-library where she tries to fulfil all the lives she would love to live through books until she decides that it's good to live and she shouldn't want to crave death and her depression is cured.
This is basically the whole story that you get to read from the blurb and from the first chapters. And that's it.
Besides my strong objections about the way mental health is stigmatized and capitalized in this book (I will get back to this in a second,) let me ask you: how can you give away all the information of what the book is about, foreshadow how it will end and use this whole library thing as the premise upon which the action repeats itself in a sort of vicious cycle from the blurb AND the beginning of your story? What am I supposed to read then? A repetition of the main premise?
Back to the mental health stigmatization: how can you possibly think that by using suicide as a plot hook and depression as the driving force of your heroine to experience suicide, take her life and then pressure her into a "life is good" philosophy so that you convince the MC that life IS indeed good, how can you possibly think that by doing this your book helps sufferers? How can you capitalize on toxic positivity so much by disregarding personal experiences, birth circumstances, social circumstances, pretty much by making depression and suicide treatable by leaving the best lives you could have by promoting that if you embrace what you have now, because life is good, life WILL BE good? Am I the only one who thinks that this is bullsh*t?
I'm extremely, IRREVOCABLY, upset about this book and the reason it hit shelves. I'm ferociously angry at the author for neglecting to read through past a Google article about 'how to be happy,' who didn't do his research on suicide and clinical depression, who had the nerve to dedicate this one to the health workers out there just because WHAT? Do you really think your book is SO good that will help them to deal with their struggles? Do you really think that health workers are ALL SO ready to give up? Do you really want to talk about their experience with mental health by using suicide as a plot mechanism AND a way to separate each chapter (the beginning of the book starts with 'Ten hours before Nora decides to end her life' or something similar.)
This is the longest and most negative review I've ever compiled. But, I felt that as a person who still struggles with their mental health and has specific experiences that are constantly being misused and misinterpreted by others, I HAD to speak up. This is the WORST book of 2021 for me.
I have zero tolerance for books that don't respect mental health and sell fake guru sh*t. This book encapsulates exactly this and seeing so many reviewers thinking it so good makes me wanna cry. Out of desperation as to the kind of stereotypes we promote because we're either fused with toxic positivity (because it's the right way to address things per the internet and fake gurus) or because we don't have enough knowledge to look past this facade (understandably so, as seeking mental health support is still considered a taboo in our society.)
This book is so badly written in the sense that the plot device is the MC wanting to kill herself, finally succeeding and ending up in a sort of purgatory-library where she tries to fulfil all the lives she would love to live through books until she decides that it's good to live and she shouldn't want to crave death and her depression is cured.
This is basically the whole story that you get to read from the blurb and from the first chapters. And that's it.
Besides my strong objections about the way mental health is stigmatized and capitalized in this book (I will get back to this in a second,) let me ask you: how can you give away all the information of what the book is about, foreshadow how it will end and use this whole library thing as the premise upon which the action repeats itself in a sort of vicious cycle from the blurb AND the beginning of your story? What am I supposed to read then? A repetition of the main premise?
Back to the mental health stigmatization: how can you possibly think that by using suicide as a plot hook and depression as the driving force of your heroine to experience suicide, take her life and then pressure her into a "life is good" philosophy so that you convince the MC that life IS indeed good, how can you possibly think that by doing this your book helps sufferers? How can you capitalize on toxic positivity so much by disregarding personal experiences, birth circumstances, social circumstances, pretty much by making depression and suicide treatable by leaving the best lives you could have by promoting that if you embrace what you have now, because life is good, life WILL BE good? Am I the only one who thinks that this is bullsh*t?
I'm extremely, IRREVOCABLY, upset about this book and the reason it hit shelves. I'm ferociously angry at the author for neglecting to read through past a Google article about 'how to be happy,' who didn't do his research on suicide and clinical depression, who had the nerve to dedicate this one to the health workers out there just because WHAT? Do you really think your book is SO good that will help them to deal with their struggles? Do you really think that health workers are ALL SO ready to give up? Do you really want to talk about their experience with mental health by using suicide as a plot mechanism AND a way to separate each chapter (the beginning of the book starts with 'Ten hours before Nora decides to end her life' or something similar.)
This is the longest and most negative review I've ever compiled. But, I felt that as a person who still struggles with their mental health and has specific experiences that are constantly being misused and misinterpreted by others, I HAD to speak up. This is the WORST book of 2021 for me.