How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading How to Stop Time by Matt Haig feels like moving through a poem or song, wrapping yourself up in it, living inside it.

It's a melancholy tune that nonetheless shimmers with hope. It's an ode to love, and life, and learning to live in the present. It's about turning your back on worry and fear; it's about embracing love and truth.

Technically, it's about a man who ages at a dramatically slower rate than the rest of us. The condition is more of curse than a blessing. But his is a fascinating journey, and a beautifully written one.

Here are a few lines to whet your appetite:

‘A kiss,’ she said, ‘is like music. It stops time.' 

‘There comes a time when the only way to start living is to tell the truth. To be who you really are, even if it is dangerous.’ 

Everything in life is uncertain. That is how you know you are existing in the world, the uncertainty. Of course, this is why we sometimes want to return to the past, because we know it, or we think we do. It’s a song we’ve heard. 

‘Everything is going to be all right. Or, if not, everything is going to be, so let’s not worry.’

How to Stop Time takes you out of your own life and time, while simultaneously enticing you to contemplate those very things. Highly recommended.

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