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A review by finding_novel_land
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
2.0
Urgh I am having such a hard time rating this book.
I initially bought this two years ago when I had an hour to kill waiting for a train and it metaphorically waved at me on a bookshelf in Waterstones. I was not on a reading roll as I am at the moment and I found the book hard to read, uninteresting (especially as the blurb markets it as a romance novel), and gave up about half way through. I very rarely give up on books.
Flash forward to a month ago when I was putting it on the donate pile and I read the blurb to a friend to see if she wanted it only to get convinced to read it again. Surely it must be good, what with the rave reviews online when it came out and this thrilling blurb.
Well dear readers, if you can make it to the last 70 pages, this book is a good'un.
If you can make it.
It's one of those books, like Pride and Prejudice, where if you persevere with a huge amount of back-story building you get an action-packed, but very rushed, final few chapters as your reward. A lot happens at the end, and I actually rushed through the last few pages, finally intrigued, but it was too rushed for so much build up and for that it just loses a star. Soz.
I have to talk about the 'chapters' as I feel that this is the books biggest flaw.
There are no chapters in this book, it is simply split into the different timezones that the book flits between. Sometimes they are ten pages, sometimes they are two. Most of the time they are about four pages long, so you sit there going 'yes! I've read 10 chapters. I'm on a reading roll. Look at me, speeding through this book.' But no. You have only read 20 pages.
And this is what I think caused me to give up on this two years ago, and nearly give up on it this time. As well as the huge amount of vaguely benign backstory you have to get through first.
So many short snippets darting between 10 different time zones, although easy enough to keep track of, is incredibly demotivating. It also doesn't really help you to get engrossed with the story, because as soon as it get interesting, suddenly you're back in a school in East London.
My final gripe is these bloomin' meetings with famous people. Every time it happened I just wanted to face palm in annoyance. Oh what's that, he is playing the lute and the next thing you know he's working for Shakespeare. And of all the boats to be on, it's Captain Cooks?! I can't can't with these sorts of things I'm sorry. Most people go through life with nothing to do with celebrities. So in 400 years you're likely to see maybe 1 if you're lucky. But 4 or 5? In significant moments of their lives. Pull the other once. Sorry it was just too cliché for me.
I would say that, overall, this book is like Normal People. I haven't read the book, but I have seen the show and I get the same vibes. It is a very observational book. It's quite hard to explain what I mean so if you get what I'm trying to say and want to expand in the comments, go for it. But it's sort of like you are floating along and things happen. You don't get too involved and you are supposed to philosophise about them. I get this feeling that this is Matt Haig's style from reading the acknowledgements. He wanted to make a commentary about human life within the perspective of time, and I suppose the book does do that.
Will I watch the film? Probably.
Would I read again? Probably not.
Will my friend be given this book? Just to get it off my shelf.
I initially bought this two years ago when I had an hour to kill waiting for a train and it metaphorically waved at me on a bookshelf in Waterstones. I was not on a reading roll as I am at the moment and I found the book hard to read, uninteresting (especially as the blurb markets it as a romance novel), and gave up about half way through. I very rarely give up on books.
Flash forward to a month ago when I was putting it on the donate pile and I read the blurb to a friend to see if she wanted it only to get convinced to read it again. Surely it must be good, what with the rave reviews online when it came out and this thrilling blurb.
Well dear readers, if you can make it to the last 70 pages, this book is a good'un.
If you can make it.
It's one of those books, like Pride and Prejudice, where if you persevere with a huge amount of back-story building you get an action-packed, but very rushed, final few chapters as your reward. A lot happens at the end, and I actually rushed through the last few pages, finally intrigued, but it was too rushed for so much build up and for that it just loses a star. Soz.
I have to talk about the 'chapters' as I feel that this is the books biggest flaw.
There are no chapters in this book, it is simply split into the different timezones that the book flits between. Sometimes they are ten pages, sometimes they are two. Most of the time they are about four pages long, so you sit there going 'yes! I've read 10 chapters. I'm on a reading roll. Look at me, speeding through this book.' But no. You have only read 20 pages.
And this is what I think caused me to give up on this two years ago, and nearly give up on it this time. As well as the huge amount of vaguely benign backstory you have to get through first.
So many short snippets darting between 10 different time zones, although easy enough to keep track of, is incredibly demotivating. It also doesn't really help you to get engrossed with the story, because as soon as it get interesting, suddenly you're back in a school in East London.
My final gripe is these bloomin' meetings with famous people. Every time it happened I just wanted to face palm in annoyance.
I would say that, overall, this book is like Normal People. I haven't read the book, but I have seen the show and I get the same vibes. It is a very observational book. It's quite hard to explain what I mean so if you get what I'm trying to say and want to expand in the comments, go for it. But it's sort of like you are floating along and things happen. You don't get too involved and you are supposed to philosophise about them. I get this feeling that this is Matt Haig's style from reading the acknowledgements. He wanted to make a commentary about human life within the perspective of time, and I suppose the book does do that.
Will I watch the film? Probably.
Would I read again? Probably not.
Will my friend be given this book? Just to get it off my shelf.