What Fiction are you reading this week, February 17, 2019?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. "How to Stop Time" by Matt Haig.

The narrator is a man who was born March 3, 1581. Around the time he was eleven he stopped aging. Turns out there are others like him. I'm a bit more than a quarter in, and it's extremely good so far. Probably the best of this kind of novel I've ever read.

My sister, who recommended it to me, clearly thought this was a completely original idea with this author. It's not. John Boyne's book The Thief of Time has the same premise: man stops aging at some point, only in Boyne's book he seems to be the only one like this, and the reader eventually figures out what might actually be going on, which is somewhat clever.

What I like about the Haig book is that it deals with the modern problem of establishing a new identity every few years, which the Boyne book totally ignores, which made that one far, far less believable.

Anyway, at this point I recommend the Haig book, don't recommend the Boyne one.