Tom Hazard looks like your average 40-something history teacher. Yet, he holds a dangerous secret: he was born in 1581. There’s not much he has to be careful about, most people wouldn’t believe him if he started talking about the things he’s seen or the people he’s met. The one thing the Society warned him not to do was fall in love…whoops…
Alternating between present day London and his past 400 years of life, we see the differences between Tom now and Tom then. We see him fall in love with Rose, a fruit seller he meets after leaving his home town. While initially wary of him, they end up falling in love and having a daughter. In modern day London we watch as his life repeats itself and he begins to fall in love with Camille, a French teacher at his school. Their story is one made for Hollywood, your stereotypical rom-com.
We also see as his spiral into the typical despair of living longer than those around you. His depression through the roaring twenties. Him trying to be diagnosed by a medical professional for his condition. We join him in meeting infamous people such as Shakespeare and Fitzgerald. It all goes exactly as expected, until it doesn’t. As part of the illusive ‘Society’, an organisation set up to help protect those like Tom, he is expected to complete certain missions every seven years to gain their protection.
To be honest, How To Stop Time by Matt Haig has been on my ‘to read’ list since before Christmas. As intriguing as it sounds, I always felt like there was another, more interesting book to pick. Yet, while I was on holiday in Amsterdam (my apologies Ernster), I purchased this book. I didn’t find it an overall difficult read and finished it in about a week, which was surprising since I was quite busy. I’m glad I got it in the end because it was a splendid read, yet I must say I was a bit disappointed by the lack of action. I expected a man who has lived for more than 400 years to have gotten into more trouble than he did. For being a Sunday Times Bestseller, I wasn’t impressed.
I think the narrative voice is very good, and I appreciate his sarcastic humour throughout the various situations he finds himself. On a deeper note, I think for being a book touching on immortality it brings up a lot of points that most books of this type try to bring up, both the advantages and disadvantages. It touches on those you love dying and those you leave behind but also how you could meet some extraordinary people and not realize their legacy until years, or centuries, later.
One of my biggest dislikes was how predictable the plot was. It was a novel where exactly what you thought would happen, does. There didn’t seem to be much about the story-line that was unique to this book which made it a bit boring to read. I was initially intrigued by the description on the cover but in my opinion, it was basically a summary of the entire book, rather than something to simply catch the readers attention.
On Goodreads.comHow To Stop Time has 3.86 stars out of 5, which is about as much as I would give it. I think it’s well written and would recommend it if someone asked about it specifically, but I have many more books I would recommend over this.
It was announced in 2017 that a film would be made starring Benedict Cumberbatch, but there has been no update on whether or not it is in the works.
