I've been following Matt Haig on twitter for a LONG time, and I love his honesty and ability to really get to the heart of things even in as short a writing format as a tweet. However, it wasn't until this year that I actually read one of his books, and now I want to read them all.
Haig is a big advocate for improving mental health services, talking about men's mental health and living in a way that is positive for you. Though this isn't the main message of the book, or even really at its forefront, I think it's there in the way the main character presents his outlook on the world.
The book follows the story of Tom Hazard, a man with a rare condition that means he ages much much slower than the average person. Born in Shakespearean times, Tom's story line flits from the present day back to when he was a child, and explains why Tom behaves the way he does. Over time, he's learnt that nothing really matters apart from love and that it's the only thing that isn't completely transient. Having lost his wife to the plague when he was young, Tom knows that his daughter Marion is someone like him and he's desperate to find her.
Tom was discovered by an agency that protects people with the same condition as him. He's assigned to seek out someone that is suspected to be the same, and either recruit them or make sure they're not able to tell anyone that people like him exist.
I honestly LOVED this book and gave it five stars. I'm a massive fan of back stories for characters (honestly the more in-depth the better, and don't even get me started on prequels). I'm also a big fan of historical fiction, and learning more about history, so this was right up my street, albeit in a heavily fictionalised version kinda way. The book took us through Shakespearean times to Tom meeting F Scott Fitzgerald, and all around the world too.
Sometimes books like this delve too much into the side of creating a really nice back story for a character without any real plot, but I loved learning about the dark side of the society that Tom ends up a part of, and I felt this added some much-needed drama to the story. I could honestly read book after book from this world, and I'd be SO into hearing the story of Tom's daughter and how she's grown up differently in a world that hates people that are 'different'.
It reads a little like YA fiction, though I'm not sure if it's intended as adult literary fiction. I think as something that comes across a bit YA-ey, it's important that this isn't a traditional romantic love story. but a familial love story because those are honestly so rare in the genre.
I would recommend this to YA fiction fans, especially if you enjoy historical fiction too!
No comments:
Post a Comment