Item: How to Stop Time
Rating: 5.00
Author: wcs53

by Matt Haig

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE 2017 BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD FOR POPULAR FICTION

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.

I really enjoyed this one, which could be described as a different kind of time-travel story. The story centres around Tom Hazard, living in the 21st century, but born in 1581. He has a condition in which he ages slowly. The drawback of this is that he has to move every 8 years or so, in case people get suspicious. The book flits back between present day and different time periods in his life. Each of these time periods reveal something else about his life, his hopes, his fears, his loves, and the people he has lost over the years. I won’t give anything else away, and it is definitely one worth reading.

How to Stop Time

by Matt Haig

Reviewed by wcs53 on Mar 10, 2020

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