Book Thoughts: How To Stop Time (Matt Haig)

★★★★★★★

Title: How To Stop Time
Author: Matt Haig
Genre: Fiction/Contemporary/Historical
First published: 2017
Edition: Hardback, published in 2017 by Canongate Books

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.

*

I loved this book an incredible amount. I have read The Humans by the same author before and one of his children’s books and loved both of those,  but this was a completely different kettle of fish. I adored every page.

This is kind of a quiet sort of book, a little quirky and very human. This is a combination that gets me every time. I loved being immersed in all these different time periods and actually believing it. I could understand the emotions that main character was going through and I loved that he was never too old to learn.

The peculiar thing is that I wrote a draft for a novel many years ago that had a very similar theme as this one, so it felt a bit like déjà vu all the way through. Maybe that was why I connected with this book on a deeper level. My own story will never see the light of day, but I simply love the concept of a group of people experiencing the passing of time in a different way from the majority.

I loved the writing and the way the story was told. It never got overly emotional or too ridiculous. This is a story that could so easily be overdone, but this wasn’t.

From start to finish, this novel has my heart.

7 out of 7 stars

 

 

 

 

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