Graeme Strachan’s Reviews > The Midnight Library > Status Update
Graeme Strachan
is 66% done
The book is becoming deeply frustrating.
It’s horribly facile and repetitive, underlining things previously mentioned only a chapter before.
I get that it’s supposed to be the POV of Nora who is apparently academically and artistically brilliant but lacks gumption and self-love but she comes across as an utter naive moron most of the time.
— Aug 14, 2025 01:09AM
It’s horribly facile and repetitive, underlining things previously mentioned only a chapter before.
I get that it’s supposed to be the POV of Nora who is apparently academically and artistically brilliant but lacks gumption and self-love but she comes across as an utter naive moron most of the time.
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Graeme’s Previous Updates
Graeme Strachan
is 80% done
Still bumping on issues with this.
It’s an issue perhaps exacerbated by choices made by the audiobook narrator, but no-one sounds like a real person when they talk. Particularly male characters who are all given the same flat intonation, which only makes more plain how robotic and bizarre and samey each character is written.
— Aug 18, 2025 01:50AM
It’s an issue perhaps exacerbated by choices made by the audiobook narrator, but no-one sounds like a real person when they talk. Particularly male characters who are all given the same flat intonation, which only makes more plain how robotic and bizarre and samey each character is written.
Graeme Strachan
is 60% done
This book seems petrified to show anything that it hasn’t already told the audience 5 times.
The effect is that Nora comes across as wilfully stupid and naive in multitudinous ways that contradict her supposed intelligence and learning so often mentioned in the text.
It’s becoming quite a frustrating read in many ways.
— Aug 12, 2025 03:38AM
The effect is that Nora comes across as wilfully stupid and naive in multitudinous ways that contradict her supposed intelligence and learning so often mentioned in the text.
It’s becoming quite a frustrating read in many ways.
Graeme Strachan
is 30% done
I’m listening to the audiobook version and aside from having to speed it up, due to the somewhat slow and languid (but decent) performance by Carey Mulligan, I’m struggling with the fact that I both enjoy the concept but am not loving execution.
Haig seems to have forgotten that we’re supposed to like or connect with the protagonist. Even a little.
But she’s just so unlikable, gloomy and self pitying.
— Aug 11, 2025 12:54PM
Haig seems to have forgotten that we’re supposed to like or connect with the protagonist. Even a little.
But she’s just so unlikable, gloomy and self pitying.
