How To Stop Time by Matt Haig

"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. I am old--old in the way that a tree, or a quahog clam, or a Renaissance painting is old .... You see, I have a condition."

Tom Hazard isn't immortal, he just doesn't age at the same rate as normal humans. He's lived through four centuries already and seen the world change. He's also lived through the deaths of the two people he loved most, making him wonder if his condition isn't a blessing, but a curse.

"It made me lonely. And when I say lonely, I mean the kind of loneliness that howls through you like a desert wind. It wasn't just the loss of people I had known but also the loss of myself. The loss of who I had been when I had been with them."

Then the Albatross Society finds him, a society made up of people just like him. And they offer the promise of safety, companionship, and purpose. There are just a few rules he as to follow:  never fall in love, never tell anyone about their secret, and never stay in one place longer than eight years. Oh, and he has to do something for them every eight years in return. And everything seems fine ... until he meets her.

My thoughts:  I love Matt Haig's novels. There's something about the way he writes, the lyricism of his prose, that makes me smile. His stories are always unexpected and quirky. And How To Stop Time is no exception. I liked Tom Hazard immediately, and I love how Haig wove together the pieces of his past and present. It makes for a poignant and thought-provoking novel. This was a 5-star read for me, and one that will for sure make my favorites list at the end of the year.

Happy Reading!

Also check out:

The Radleys by Matt Haig

From my TBR shelf...

"It is a quiet place, especially at night.  Too quiet, you'd be entitled to think, for any kind of monster to live among its pretty, tree-shaded lanes....If you let yourself think this, you would be wrong. For 17 Orchard Lane is the home of the Radleys, and despite their very best efforts, they are anything but normal."

The reason I bought a copy of the The Radleys by Matt Haig a couple of years ago is because I liked his witty and wonderful novel, The Humans, so much. (And also because my library didn't own any copies of this one.) So I don't know why I then let it languish unread for so long on my shelf. Maybe because I was afraid it wouldn't be as good as I hoped. But I needn't have worried. The Radleys is a very readable and entertaining novel with a great ending. I liked it a lot!

It's about a married couple, Peter and Helen Radley, who are vampires that have chosen to become "Abstainers" in order to give their two children an ordinary, human life. The only problem? Clara and Rowan Radley aren't human; they're vampires, too. They just don't know it. Until the night Clara is attacked by a boy from her high school. When she fights back and tastes blood for the very first time, the secret Peter and Helen have been keeping from their children is revealed in a big way. And suddenly Clara and Rowan know who they really are...and what they're meant to be. To make matters even worse, Peter's brother, Will, an unrepentant blood-drinking vampire, shows up at their house causing even more havoc for Helen and her family. And suddenly their quiet existence is threatened with extinction.  "The Radleys explores the lengths to which a parent will go to protect a child, the costs of denying your true identity, the undeniable appeal of sin, and the everlasting bonds of family love."

Happy Reading!

P.S. This book counts as my fourth TBR read for The Backlist Reader Challenge hosted by Lark at The Bookwyrm's Hoard. Only six more TBRs to go!