Review: How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

4.5 stars for How to Stop Time by Matt Haig.

How to stop Time is a beautiful work of fiction. It is a thought-provoking tale of living with a condition where time stretches out towards an almost infinitely distant point in the future, a condition that sounds like a blessing but which, in itself, is also a curse.

Written with a time perspective that does an impressive job to comfort and terrify, the story flits seamlessly between the past and the present to span centuries where everything changes, yet nothing changes. Chapter to chapter, scene to scene, time to time, flashback to flashback, everywhere but nowhere, everything but nothing, all at once torn between centuries, between place and time, now and then. The author brilliantly delivers an effect which is a poignant combination of mesmerizing surroundings and tragic history. The entire story will have been perfectly executed if not for the slight tweak towards the end which I feel kind of bring the story down a notch.

Estienne Thomas Ambroise Christophe Hazard has many, many names, and been many, many things. Because of a - speed of ageing at 1:15 ratio - condition, he has been roaming Earth for four centuries and then some. This is his story. Read it, live it and join him on his quest on how to stop time.

"What are you scared of?"
"I am scared of time."


Publisher: Canongate Books; Main edition
Publication date: 14 Dec 2017

*** Favourite quote 1 ***

To talk about memories is to live them a little.

*** Favourite quote 2 ***

History was – is – a one-way street. You have to keep walking forwards. But you don’t always need to look ahead. Sometimes you can just look around and be happy right where you are.

~ How to Stop Time
Matt Haig

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A love story across the ages – and for the ages – about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history–performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

So Tom moves back his to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher–the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city’s history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society’s watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can’t have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.

*Blurb from author's website*

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