Mrs. ElmâNora's kind school librarianâis the librarian of the Midnight Library. She explains the rules: every book is a life Nora could have lived. The Book of Regrets lists every regret. To try a life, Nora opens a book and steps into it. She can return to the library whenever she wantsâunless she no longer wants to live at all, in which case the library will end. The goal is to find a life she wants to stay in.
Not every possible life has a bookâonly the ones that were real possibilities. Nora can sample lives. If she finds one she wants to stay in, she stays. If she gives up hope, the library collapses. The library is both gift and test: it shows her that infinite alternate lives existâand that the only life that can be âperfectâ is the one she chooses to want.
The library is not about escaping the root lifeâitâs about learning. By trying other lives, Nora will see that regret is often the flip side of idealization. No life is perfect; the task is to want the one we have.