Book Review : How To Stop Time – Matt Haig

Hey people, I haven’t posted a book review in a bit not because i’m not reading but life has been a bit crazy lately. I shall be doing a life update post soon.

I absolutely loved loved loved reading this book. Titi actually bought it on her trip to Bermuda. If you haven’t read about her trip, you can read about it here, here and here.

How to stop time by Matt Haig was published in February 6, 2018 by Viking.

Blurb

‘The first rule is that you don’t fall in love’ he said… ‘There are other rules too, but that is the main one. No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. If you stick to this you will just about be okay.’ 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 Scott Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life. So Tom moves back 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. How to stop time is a big hearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.

I read this book in one week.

The story revolves around the main character Tom Hazard, a man who has a condition called Anageria which develops around puberty which in plain terms means he aged slower than the regular human. He looks a year older every 15 years. How insane? He looks about 41 years old but in reality is 439 years old. He took us on a journey of his life from 1599 to present day 21st century. The timeline was a bit too scattered for me. It went from 1982 to present day to 1599. I still was able to follow but I’d have preferred if it was sequentially arranged.

It’s a strange but awesome book. I love books that make me imagine things, books that take me on a journey, books that can temporarily have all my attention and this definitely ticked all the boxes. It started off a bit slow and confusing but it started to make sense as I progressed. Although, the end was a bit predictable, it didn’t make it any less intriguing.

Another aspect I liked was that he incorporated famous people like Shakespeare, Captain Cook, Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda into the story. Although it was a bit pointless if you look at the book as a whole but I found it super cool partly because I haven’t read about the lives of these people.

Of course having lived for over four hundred years, Tom has seen it all. Literally. He went through loss and then love and Hapiness and more losses. Everyone has a thing to learn from our obsession with time and the future. I don’t want to share too much so as not to spoil it for you but it’s definitely a good read! I gave it 4 stars!

My favorite quotes.

‘As you get older you realise you never get away with things. The human mind has its own prisons. You don’t have a choice over everything in life.’

‘It doesn’t matter that we age differently. It doesn’t matter that there’s no way of resisting the laws of time. The time ahead of you is like the land beyond the ice. You can guess what it could be like but you can never know. All you know is the moment you’re in.’

‘But the thing is: You cannot know the future. You look at the news and it looks terrifying. But you can never be sure. That is the whole thing with the future. You don’t know. At some point you have to accept that you don’t know. You have to stop flicking ahead and just concentrate on the page you are on.’

Have you read this book?

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