May’s Top Reviews
How to Stop Time – Matt Haig
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| 400 year old Tom Hazard is living his life as as a teacher in Hackney. He is what is called an ‘Alba’ a person who ages ‘sideways instead of forwards’ as he puts it. Moving every 8 years and completely changing his identity, he struggles to find meaning in his life. Having fallen in love in the 1600s, Tom is still mourning her hundreds of years later, and my God don’t you know it by the end of the book. It gets to a point where you desperately need him to just stop bloody whining!Â
Read as a joint read with my fiancée, we both really enjoyed the premise and the deeper meaning and meanderings on the concept of time and it’s overall concept was good. Unfortunately, the plot let it down. It was very slow and there was an awful lot of backstory, 400 years worth to be exact. It could have done with being almost 100 pages shorter as we’d already figured out the ending and spent the final pages waiting for Tom to actually catch up and come to the same conclusion. There is also that lingering question of: if you could go anywhere, be anything and live anywhere on earth, why would you choose to be a teacher in Hackney?! Perhaps I’m being harsh. The historical insights were good and Haig does well to try to capture life in Elizabethan England and France, Australia and all the other places that are visited. The tender love story of the search for Tom’s daughter is also delicately described. The undying aspect of love is conveyed throughout – even after 300 years apart, he is still actively searching for her. I did find it quite amusing though, how he just happens to bump into the most famous figures from every time period and in most cases, become personal friends with them. |
The Map of Us – Jules Preston
| The journey of me reading this book went something like this: – who’s the narrator here? – huh? – what’s going on? -I’m going to hate this – ohhh, it’s two narrators! – hang on, what? – okay there’s way more than two narrators – why can I not work out who’s speaking here? – oh okay so *** is related to ***? – and she’s related to *** – actually this is quite clever! – yep, I’m really liking this – soldSo, the above is the reason I’m giving ‘The Map of Us’ 4.5 stars. 🌟🌟🌟🌟 If I’m going to give anyone advice reading this book, it would be: hang in there son. I really didn’t enjoy the start. I didn’t have a clue who was talking and I couldn’t keep track of any of the details. Around 50% in though, it cleverly starts coming together and you get up slowly completing a literary jigsaw. It was a really clever structure but I do think quite a few readers would put it down before they realised that it isn’t just bad writing. The characters are fascinating and once you get used to their individual voices and how they fit in the family tree of the larger narrative, you begin to really understand and like each individual story. The chapters are really short, some barely two pages long and I like that in a book. It always encourages you to rip through a story rather than struggle through it. I don’t want to say too much more because I think it will spoil it but I’ll end with this: it’s endearing, sweet and intelligently written and that’s all I want in a book. Booksource: NetGalley – thank you to Jules Preston and Harper Impulse. |
Musings of a High School English Teacher 