The Midnight Library

This story shares a theme with and pays a bit of an homage to the movie It's a Wonderful Life. Set in Bedford, England, rather than Bedford Falls, it tells the story of a 35-year-old woman who, after a series of severe reversals -- the death of her parents, estrangement from her brother and her best friend, calling off her wedding, losing a pet, losing her main employment, and losing her supplemental side job -- decides that she's made an absolute hash of her life and that it's no longer worth living.

As her consciousness fades, she finds herself in a majestic building full of millions of books, and a librarian who tells her that these are all the possible branches of her life had she made different choices. She has only a little time left, but she is given a choice: if she could choose to have taken a different path, which one would it be?

And so she tries life after alternate life, discovering that the roads not taken are often not so idyllic as hindsight and regret make them seem. And she is running out of time to find the right life before her old one fades completely away.

There is a bit of grimness early on with an attempted suicide by pills, but a reader who can weather that will be richly rewarded by an exploration of what really makes life meaningful and worthwhile. And I loved that rather than going for the Hollywood Ending, this novel instead went for one which is realistic, ultimately hopeful, and satiisfying.