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 and tame the past that is fast catching up with him.
The only thing Tom mustn't 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 often think of what Hendrich said to me, over a century ago, in his New York apartment](Canongate Books, 6 July 2017, copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
I'm a huge fan of Matt Haig and couldn't wait to read this. I was not disappointed.
I loved How to Stop Time. I love books that have time shifts or do crazy things with time. So I loved the concept of this book.
I was engrossed from page one until the end.
I loved the structure of the novel, moving back and forth from Tom's present life as a history teacher in London through important moments in his long life, including when he first became part of the Albatross Society and the tragedy that ensued when he fell in love with someone who aged normally.
I loved the end of the novel, how all the important moments in Tom's life came together.
I thought Tom was a great character. I felt so sad for him at times; despite living more than four hundred years he could be very naïve at times. He wanted so much to pass and ordinary and tried so hard but things had a habit of going bad. I sort of loved him.
