As part of my new weekly Throwback Thursday feature, for my second post of the day I’m reposting my review of the brilliant How To Stop Time by Matt Haig. Released in 2017, this is a book that I fell in love with from the very first page. Matt Haig is fast becoming one of my favourite authors of all time and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!
I hope you enjoy.
About the book:
“I am old. That is the first thing to tell you. The thing you are least likely to believe. If you saw me you would probably think I was about forty, but you would be very wrong.”
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. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot, and now craves an ordinary life.
Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover – working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he’d never witnessed them first-hand. He can try to tame the past that is fast catching up with him. The only thing Tom must not do is fall in love.
How to Stop Time is a wild and bittersweet story about losing and finding yourself, about the certainty of change and about the lifetimes it can take to really learn how to live.
About the author:
Matt Haig is a British author for children and adults. His memoir Reasons to Stay Alive was a number one bestseller, staying in the British top ten for 46 weeks. His children’s book A Boy Called Christmas was a runaway hit and is translated in over 25 languages. It is being made into a film by Studio Canal and The Guardian called it an ‘instant classic’. His novels for adults include the award-winning The Radleys and The Humans.
He won the TV Book Club ‘book of the series’, and has been shortlisted for a Specsavers National Book Award. The Humans was chosen as a World Book Night title. His children’s novels have won the Smarties Gold Medal, the Blue Peter Book of the Year, been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and nominated for the Carnegie Medal three times.
His books have received praise from Neil Gaiman, Stephen Fry, Jeanette Winterson, Joanne Harris, Patrick Ness, Ian Rankin and SJ Watson, among others. The Guardian summed up his writing as ‘funny, clever and quite, quite lovely’ by The Times and the New York Times called him ‘a writer of great talent’.
Also by Matt Haig: Notes on a Nervous Planet and The Truth Pixie.
My Review:
Writing a review of a book I’ve loved as much as I love this one is no easy task. How could I possibly do this book justice? It’s impossible to put into words the depth of emotion How to Stop Time made me feel as I was reading it, and how I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.
Exquisitely written by the brilliant Matt Haig, this is a book that speaks to me on such a personal level. To say too much about it would only spoil it for others as this is a book that needs to be read and absorbed without knowing too much about it other than what the blurb tells you.
It is, without a doubt, one of the best novels about time I’ve ever read and, believe me, I’ve read more than my fair share over the years. My fascination with time and time travel began as an eleven year old when I first read Time and Again by Jack Finney (still one of my favourite books of all time) and has continued right up until the present day with the wonderful Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman. And now How to Stop Time has joined my list of all time favourite reads and is a book I know I will return to again and again.
Matt Haig is an exceptional writer, and is someone whose work has had a huge impact on me. His previous book Reasons to Stay Alive has helped me in my battle with anxiety and depression and is my ‘go to’ book every time I feel the darkness begin to descend yet again. I will never be able to thank him enough for writing such an astounding and insightful book that made me feel less alone in a world that can sometimes feel like such an isolating, lonely place.
And in How to Stop Time he has done it yet again, but this time it is a powerful work of fiction that has stolen my heart. Exquisitely written, with characters I am unlikely to forget any time soon, this is a beautiful and moving story that will stay with me.
An unforgettable and mesmerising book that I highly recommend.
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig is available to buy now: Amazon UK
Cal Turner Reviews 