I thought it was okay. I cried a little at the end, playing chess with Mrs. Elm. The spoilers are out of context here. It's a multiverse, so literally any combination you can imagine, could be the ending.

I liked the part about potential, you don't have to live a life that you're enthralled with, or is impressive on any level, but when you live a life you've decided has no potential, well that's fatalistic. And in Nora's case, almost fatal.

I do get the snarky reviews, saying that the author is overstepping his role of storytelling into mental health counseling and offering up sanctimonious platitudes. In the most "happy" life, Nora has kids and I don't think that's right at all, it's extremely distilled into "if you have kids, you won't need antidepressants". I thought it was just okay. Does he really get to any root of her depression? Some of her versions have therapists but we don't know what they talk about, it's explained away.

It's an interesting exploration that wasn't written terribly and I'm not sure how I would write this better, without using the mental health/suicide facet of the story. If Nora and Izzy had both been booted into their own respective Midnight Libraries (Maybe Izzy's would have been a midnight whale watching ferry and her books would be whales she could....ride?) during an Australian car crash, would that have taken away from the story? She could have found her will to live in other ways, I think, by almost dying in a crash with her best friend. The suicide attempt doesn't seem integral to the plot.

But the foundational message rings true: a life you view with the perspective of having no potential is extremely boring/not worth living for. When Nora (please kill me if I ever have to read the nickname "Norster" or "Nono" again) finds a life she likes, she appreciates it with more of a prescriptive admiration, "I should like this" and harbors some feelings of pre-determination, like if everything is sorted, what's left for me to be excited about?

As an aside, I live my coffee-life as a Midnight Librarian - I don't like going back to repeat places unless they're very special and I think that's precisely why: the potential. There *could* be a better coffee somewhere I just haven't found yet. I do echo the sentiment sometimes while experiencing a cafe, "I should like this," but the potential of those other options is tempting. I don't want to live life with my coffee options sorted, and that helps makes life worth living.