How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

 Book Review

        If you want to stop time, read this book. I'm not even joking (okay maybe just a little bit). Though I honestly think you could read the first 67 pages of this book and then skip ahead to page 258 and have a much more enjoyable experience. You wouldn't even miss that much. 

        Most of this review is going to be personal opinion. I am incapable of being unbiased. If you read this book and have a different opinion than me that's good! 

        I rated this book ⭐⭐ (2 stars) mostly because I was disappointed. It promised a lot and didn't deliver. I'll get into more what I mean by that later in the review. Until the very end I was planning on rating it ⭐⭐⭐(3 stars) because it wasn't awful and I did finish it, however the last 2 pages of the story cost it an entire star. 

 

        I'm going to try and keep this review spoiler free for the most part. There will be a section at the end full of spoilers were I rant about a few very specific things that I hated. That will be marked. If you don't want spoilers don't read that section. 

On to the Review:

        I was optimistic about this book. From the description it seemed like it would be right up my alley. Roughly: an immortal history teacher falls in love despite the rules of a secret society of other immortals and now he has to choose between living in the past and living in the present. Yes please! Except that's not what the book is about at all. Either I misunderstood the description or it was very misleading. Either way it resulted in disappointment. 

 

        On a slightly unrelated note this book is tagged as time travel on goodreads, there is absolutely no time travel in this book. None. 

 

        This book is about a man named Tom who ages incredible slowly. While he only looks like he's in his 40's really he is over 400 years old. The story is very character centric, it is in first person and while there is a plot it takes a back seat for most of this book (and sometimes is in a completely different vehicle). So right from the start this book is on thin ice with me. I struggle with first person and am a plot lover.  However, I was interested in the plot and the character of Tom so I stuck with it, and for the first 50 or so pages it was a very enjoyable read. 

 

        The story follows Tom throughout his incredibly long life. Jumping back and forth between the present day and moment's in the past. Sometimes the past sections happen in chronological order and other times they jump around. I enjoyed this set up. It showed how the past informed who Tom was in the present, and it gave a fun dynamic to what otherwise would have been some boring scenes. I was never confused about what time period we were in and the scenes connected thematically so they flowed together really well. 

 

        My biggest problem with this book was the character development. With a character centric story there needs to be really strong characters, who the reader wants to know more about and who have their own motivations. There was very little of that in this book. Tom is the most developed character, which makes sense, the story is told from his prospective. Hendrich, the leader of the Albatross Society, is also a very interesting character, if under utilized. However, the women in this book are so underdeveloped that it is painful. There are quite a few women in this story and they all have the exact same problem, they are not fully realized people. They have zero motivation of their own. They do not exist except in their relationship to the men in the book, mainly their various relationships with Tom. I do not like this. With a little more character development the women in this book could have been amazing.

 

        About Tom. He is so boring. My gods. At the beginning of this book I was fascinated by his character. I love immortal characters so I was very happy with the idea of another immortal character. Even one who is a little depressed and stuck in the past. But Tom is so stuck in the past that he acts the same way in the present day as he did when he was 18. It's been 400 years, where is the growth? 

        And at the end of the book, after going through some pretty life changing things, he seems exactly the same. The character growth just wasn't there. It made Tom a very unlikable character, in my opinion. Sometimes an unlikable character can be just what a story needs, unfortunately I don't think Tom's unlikability was intentional. 

        Another thing I didn't like was the plot, or lack there of. As I've said before this book was a very character driven story. When you have that kind of story you don't always need a strong plot. Even though I am a plot lover I can still enjoy a good character driven story. My problem with this book was that from the beginning there was foreshadowing about a plot that I personally thought would have been really good. But every time it hinted at it the story would pulled back. By the end I was getting frustrated. Being fed breadcrumbs of a plot.  Then at about the 90% mark the plot actually happened but it was rushed. The book had to resolve so much stuff in the last 60 pages or so. It didn't have time to do it justice. Compared to the rest of the book the ending seemed out of place. Something I had been looking forward to felt like it should have been in a completely different book. 

 

         All together it was a disappointment in the shape of a compelling story. 

        That is the end of what I have to say that doesn't have spoilers in it. I wish that I had less negative things to say but... I was just so excited about what I expected this book to be.

 

Spoilers Start Here! Spoilers Start Here!   

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        Okay I have to talk about Marion.

        Marion is Tom's daughter. 400ish years ago Tom had a child but left when she was around 9(?) in order to protect her and her mother from witchcraft allegations. Anyway, later he learns that Marion has the same condition that he does and ages incredibly slowly. So he promises his dying wife that he will find her. Only he never finds her. And we never see any scenes of him actively looking for her. He asks the Albatross Society to help him, and when Camille recognizes him he asks if she knows someone names Marion. That's all we as the audience actually see, it is mentioned but never shown. There was plenty of time too. She's a very important person in Tom's life, but not seemingly in the book. Because other than the few scenes of her as a young child she is only on page for the last 25 pages of the book. What is that? It was so frustrating. She seemed so cool but she was barely there. And the book had to resolve her plot line on top of all the other stuff that was happening at the end of the book. She deserved more!

        The last two pages of the book.

        So I mentioned at the very beginning of this review I was going to give this book ⭐⭐⭐ (3 stars) but the last two pages ruined it. All because of what Camille wanted to name her and Tom's baby. So yeah, at the end of the book Camille is pregnant and is talking with Tom about what to name the baby and she decided on Sophie Rose. Sophie after Camille's grandmother and Rose after Tom's first wife who he has been pining for for 400 years. In my notes I wrote "Shut up! Gross - Stop - no". I hate that so much. There were so many better names for your daughter. His grandmothers name, his mothers name, I would have been okay with Grace (Rose's sister's name) but not the name of your partners dead partner. No.

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End of Spoilers! End of Spoilers! No More Spoilers!        

        Thank you so much for making it to the end of my review! I appreciate it. This is the first review like this that I have written. I usually only do two sentence reviews on goodreads. But this book was stuck in my head and I needed to get it out and this was the only thing I could think to do. Hopefully it works!

       📖 Read on!