Reviews with content warning for Grief - How to Stop Time

Tom Hazard has been alive for four hundred and thirty nine years and over the course of history has spent many of them caught up in the past, protecting himself and loved ones from potential harm in the future, all while rarely truly living in the present. How to Stop Time is a unique read that presents the reader vignettes across Tom's life (sometimes in and out of chronological order) loosely divided between five arcs that each focus on a particular theme and state of his life. While there are a lot of fun cameo appearances by famous historical figures that pop-up in the narrative (my personal favorite is William Shakespeare, I wish I was more cultured to have appreciated other cameos more), most of the bulk content involves Tom in a state of existential crisis. The overall story reminded me a lot of the 2015 movie Age of Adeline in concept while executed in a more introspective manner. While Age of Adeline was firmly focused on a romance drama, How to Stop Time's romance serves more as a foundation and event pushes Tom to be the person that he is... hundreds of years later. This is first and foremost a character drama about how Tom's outlook on life shifts (Public Library that I borrowed this book from, you are doing this story a disservice by classifying it with a romance novel genre sticker on the book cover).

There are moments that are so captivating with lines that beg to be pulled as inspirational quotes much like the character Marion does with Montaigne, but it's not always consistent in quality. Despite finding the novel's synopsis and concept fascinating, I found most of the actual read to be a bit dry and slow. As per usual with Haig's other novels, I found the last 60 pages to be explosive both in terms of action and resolution and wished the arc could've been twice as long compared to the first half that was relatively light in plot progress and interest. I also agree with other reviews that mention the villain being underdeveloped and half-baked. The conclusion writes off a lot of unanswered questions about the Albatross Society and albas' existence as mysteries that disappear never meant to be discovered by the general public, but compared to Tom's solid character resolution (which also can seem rushed given the fast-paced ending previously mentioned) it just feels a bit half-baked (to be fair, the Vampire Association in Haig's The Radley's received a similar undeveloped treatment).

While I liked the concept a lot, the uneven pacing and plot held me back from scoring this higher. Had this book adjusted the first half and stretched the last sequence of events in Australia out for another 50-100 pages, this might've been an entirely different review.

Content Warnings

itsbumley's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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lschuchman's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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thehollyking's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

This book was much like Tom Hazard's life, longer than it should've been. It felt very context heavy, I would say the actual plot only spanned about 1/3 of the book. It could've been so much more condensed and said exactly the same thing. Most of the chapters were just fluff. The actual plot was ok.
I've never been a fan of stories that tell you in a sentence at the end the thought or moral you're meant to be taking away from the book, and this does just that. It kind of felt like the moral came first and the plot came second.
It wasn't a bad book. It was just fine.

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jodar's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The story is well-written, its prose straightforward without being a simplistic ’airport read’ and the frequent time-jumps flow coherently. It is a didactic novel, but with a kindly, rather troubled teacher who endeavours to share his wisdom about the human condition from the vantage point of his unnaturally long life. By the end I realised that the reader’s role is equivalent to that of one of the pupils in the 21st-century, London school in which the MC as a history teacher relives his life “now”.

Some of the key things the MC seeks to teach us:

Life isn’t perfect, but if could be worse – one of my favourite passages:

No one I knew in the 1600s wanted to find their inner billionaire. They just wanted to live to see adolescence and avoid body lice. (Part 5, “Dubai, now”)

We can’t control everything, but we aren’t entirely at the mercy of fate either. And what you choose to do matters:

‘You can’t choose where you are born, you can’t decide who won’t leave you, you can’t choose much. A life has unchangeable tides the same as history does. But there is still room inside it for choice. For decisions.… Just one wrong turn can get you very lost. What you do in the present stays with you . It comes back. You don’t get away with anything.’ (MC to pupil, Part 3, ”London, now”)

People are often annoying and can cause you mental anguish while you live with them and intense grief at death. But avoiding close relationships, although seductive for a time, is not the answer in the end, as without other people life is lonely and joyless. Various passages throughout the novel, for example:

‘Love is where you find the meaning. Those seven years I was with her contained more than anything else.… You simply can’t fall in love and not think there is something bigger ruling us. Something, you know, not quite us. Something that lives inside us, caged in us, ready to help us or fuck us over. We are mysteries to ourselves.…’ (Omai to the MC, Part 5.“Byron Bay, Australia, now”)

What will be will be, and it is fruitless and self-destructive to fear the future:

I understand that the way you stop time is by stopping being ruled by it. I am no longer drowning in my past, or fearful of my future. How can I be?
The future is you.
(MC’s final thoughts at the very close of the novel, having finally, after over four centuries,
succeeded in reconciling with his daughter and also begun a new intimate relationship
)

All well and very good, but to me there’s a strange, gaping hole in the narrative and MC’s exploration of meaning: religion. Religion is noted as the reason for his Huguenot family’s forced late 16th-century departure from France to England. The MC and his first love attend church in early 17th century England, until his unchanging appearance makes it untenable to continue. And the MC continues to live through periods of religious ferment. So it’s not as though the MC wasn’t exposed to contemporary Christianity, at least. And yet the MC doesn’t seem to consider, grapple with or argue against any religious understanding of life’s broader meaning. At all. At any time. Nor as far as I can recall do any of the other characters in the book. It’s almost as if every character in the novel, purportedly through centuries of time and across wide geographical areas of the earth, were all 21st century, English secularists all along. I find this weird and unbelievable!

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vicixyz's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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waytoomanybooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is such a clever twist in the time travel genre, but the title is totally inaccurate. The main character never once attempts to figure out how his aging has been stopped, nor do any of the other character. His only focus is in finding others who have his anti-aging condition.

However, I enjoyed the reflective wisdom of the main character and the history we get to experience along with him. It was fun to see notable historical figures pop into and out of his life, but I especially liked that the people who had the biggest impact on him were just regular people: his family, his friends, his coworkers, etc. The main thread that binds together, all the many arcs of Tom's story is love, and it was lovely to see him come to that conclusion.

My other quibble with the novel is that the story kind of just ends, and the miniature epilogue was a bit too cheesy/cliché for my taste.

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froggydanny's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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