How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

 

How to Stop Time is a love story that’s riddled with way too much internal monologuing. Tom Hazard, the main character, thinks in such long-winded thoughts that I found myself rolling my eyes as I read. He also over thinks everything which is most likely a side effect of the fact that he’s over 400 years old.

Due to a rare disorder, Tom ages much more slowly than the average person and has lived many lifetimes when we meet him in the present day. Of course these lifetimes are corrupted by the sadness and pain from having fallen in love when he was just a young man, in a time where suspicions often lead to death. He's had to run and hide, leaving behind his love and losing her and his daughter to time.

Today, Tom’s a mess, pinning for a daughter that may or may not be alive while enduring the same ageless gift that has him existing within constant fear. As a member of the Albatross Society, Tom lives his life in eight year increments, moving on to a new place and inhabiting a new identity when each period is up. All this comes with a price, and between each transition he must complete a task for the Society, who’s trying to recruit all the others like Tom. Those refusing to join, don’t always come to a natural end.

Right now, Tom is a history teacher in London, fighting off headaches and detailed reveries into his past where stories shift from sadness and pain to meeting people like Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He catalogues his great love and truly whines quite a bit. It all climaxes with an epiphany, a discovery, and a lot of philosophizing. There's also kind of a happy ending, but it’s not exciting. Tom may end the book hopeful, but he can’t shake his essence as a big 'ole downer.

I picked up this book because of The Midnight Library. I liked it and enjoyed Haig’s writing style, which is similar here, but it just doesn’t work for me. I never got into the characters and couldn’t tell what kind of book I was reading, so mixed were the signals. I’d recommend skipping this one, but trying Haig out by grabbing a copy of another one of his books.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

 

I loved this book. It's so perfectly written. New bits of information are rolled out at the perfect time. Although everything takes place within a few hours, nothing ever feels rushed.

Everyone in this book is anxious. It's an appropriate title, but the pressures everyone is under are totally different. First, there's the bank robber who's anxious because their botched robbery has led to a hostage situation. Each of the hostages are anxious because of what's happening in their lives, not because of the fact that they're all stuck in an apartment for sale, right before New Year's Eve. Rounding out the gang are two cops whose interpersonal baggage and desire to save the day make them anxious as well.

It's a humorous setup, with a bank robber who can't do anything right, but this isn't a funny story. Many of the characters start the book sad and a little lost. The storytelling feels a little comical, and we're definitely in the realm of the absurd, but everything becomes so emotional, and then becomes emotionally fulfilling. I may have almost cried at the end, almost.

Throughout their time as hostages, every character changes their view of their lives. They all start with something hidden. It's all exposed. They're all changed. You get an ending that puts each into a new arc that's both pleasing to you and happier for them. The story also comes full circle in a perfect way, one that has nothing to do with the botched robbery.

This is a great book. It's so different from what I've read lately and was not what I expected it to be at all. It's an intelligent, and unique, look at everyday people, put into an unlikely situation. Instead of being scared, they face it head-on, all of them, and come out better than they went in. It's a great read for anyone.

Lore by Alexandra Bracken

 

I liked the first half of this book better than the second. The story was stronger, for me, at the start and too drawn out by the end. Even though things reach a satisfying conclusion, there's maybe 50 pages too much that get you there.

All that being said, Lore is a unique, well-thought-out story that inserts a "what if" scenario into our modern-day world that's both fascinating and exciting. I was quickly hooked.

What if a set of Greek gods and goddesses become mortal every seven years?

What if, when they're in this state, the human who kills them absorbs their power and becomes the new version of that immortal?

You're curious, right?

This is the reality Melora (aka Lore) gets born into as a descendant of Perseus. Her bloodline is one of the heroic few selected to punish the banished gods and goddesses, and so they continuously train, preparing to do battle every seven years in the week-long Agon. Deities like Apollo, Athena, Hermes, and Ares are forced, during this time frame, to become mortal (with superhuman powers) and get hunted.

It's a bloody, strategic, and cunning week of treachery and violence that the bloodlines basically live for. Each one wants a god of their own to kill and claim. Lore is the last of her bloodline. She feels the pull to fight, but also wants out of the whole cycle. She's lost everything, including her parents and sisters, and spent the years between the pervious Agon and the one about to start hiding. Then, one day, at just the right moment, a wounded Athena shows up on her doorstep and Lore finds herself fully sucked back in.

The rude awakening throughout her interaction with Athena is that nothing is as it seems. Lore dives back into the carnage hoping to put an end to the whole thing, but it's complicated and full of near-death experiences. There's also no shortage of pain, both physical and emotional, deceit, and fear as Lore and a few trusted friends try to figure out what's really happening and how to save their beloved city of New York from the power lust of the gods.

It's all very exciting until the aftermath of one particularly intense battle, and a few big reveals. This is where the real climax of the book takes place, but the story keeps going, and more keeps happening. It all makes sense and is significant to the plot, but the 'wow' factor has already worn off, and you're not even close to the end. This is why I feel that the second half isn't as good as the first. Things could have transpired much more rapidly, still getting you to the end of Lore's story, but without so much drag.

I did really like this book, and I loved Lore as a character. I do want to send out a fair warning though about the speed bump you may or may not feel toward the end. Overall, however, this is a great story that mixes myth with a relatable reality, and I very much enjoyed reading it.