Waves on the sand
Author : Matt Haig
Title : How To Stop Time
Published : 14/12/2017
Pages : 336
Genre : Science Fiction
Publisher : Canongate Books
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity he can keep one step ahead of his past - and stay alive. The only thing he must not do is fall in love.
I was first introduced to the work of Matt Haig in his book The Humans. It was a story I took to heart and was so much more than I thought it would be. It is not so often that I return to an author so soon but I felt the need to make an exception this time.
This time around Haig introduces us to Tom Hazard a man struggling to deal with his own immortality. The author has an amazing knack for delivering this complex lead characters which hook into the very fundamentals of what it means to be human. When it comes to making you lead an immortal there is always the worry that your audience will struggle to connect with the situation they find themselves in. But with Tom no matter the time period his struggles always seem to be all too relatable, I suppose in so many ways it shows that as the world keeps turning we as a species don't change all that much. Tom comes through all this still struggling to deal with what it really means to live. As you would imagine when you live so long you're bound to rub shoulders with a few famous names. But for me, it's the unknown names toms spends small parts of his life with that interested me the most. Each in their own way serves to teach our hero and show him that despite his condition live can more than the sum of its parts.
As with his previous book, things are all ways a bit more complected than you would first imagine. He takes on bigger subjects and wraps them up in a larger than life coating. For me, it's a great part of why I enjoy his books so much. Due to his light hand in writing it makes it easy to be pulled into the worlds he creates. With this book he also introduced a bit more action to the story, I wouldn't exactly say that it is fast paced, It does, however, add another interesting layer to the plot. How do you stay hidden for so long without someone getting wise to you? And do you fill your days when you think you've seen everything new under the sun? This is also a book about how we can't live in the past, despite at times how safe it can seem. While it may shape who we are today is by no means shape who we could be. Things are always fluid and pronto change, Even if we sometimes need a shove from someone else to do it. For me at least I always finish his book happier than when I started them, He shows you that life is one great big adventure and most of it is out of control.
I was first introduced to the work of Matt Haig in his book The Humans. It was a story I took to heart and was so much more than I thought it would be. It is not so often that I return to an author so soon but I felt the need to make an exception this time.
This time around Haig introduces us to Tom Hazard a man struggling to deal with his own immortality. The author has an amazing knack for delivering this complex lead characters which hook into the very fundamentals of what it means to be human. When it comes to making you lead an immortal there is always the worry that your audience will struggle to connect with the situation they find themselves in. But with Tom no matter the time period his struggles always seem to be all too relatable, I suppose in so many ways it shows that as the world keeps turning we as a species don't change all that much. Tom comes through all this still struggling to deal with what it really means to live. As you would imagine when you live so long you're bound to rub shoulders with a few famous names. But for me, it's the unknown names toms spends small parts of his life with that interested me the most. Each in their own way serves to teach our hero and show him that despite his condition live can more than the sum of its parts.
As with his previous book, things are all ways a bit more complected than you would first imagine. He takes on bigger subjects and wraps them up in a larger than life coating. For me, it's a great part of why I enjoy his books so much. Due to his light hand in writing it makes it easy to be pulled into the worlds he creates. With this book he also introduced a bit more action to the story, I wouldn't exactly say that it is fast paced, It does, however, add another interesting layer to the plot. How do you stay hidden for so long without someone getting wise to you? And do you fill your days when you think you've seen everything new under the sun? This is also a book about how we can't live in the past, despite at times how safe it can seem. While it may shape who we are today is by no means shape who we could be. Things are always fluid and pronto change, Even if we sometimes need a shove from someone else to do it. For me at least I always finish his book happier than when I started them, He shows you that life is one great big adventure and most of it is out of control.
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