What a lovely, engaging read! Loved the mature romance, realistic depiction of marriage & motherhood, and the contemporary post-covid setting. Highly recommend.

Ok, The description of this gave major hallmark vibes. The reality of it was less appealing. A second round purchase for most libraries.

I am a Juliette Fay fan, so reading this ARC was truly a gift! I loved being on this journey with Helen and seeing how she discovered strengths she didn’t realize she had. Taking the reader back and forth in time was absolutely perfect and allowed me to feel like I’d known Helen and Cal since they ran in high school. I had vivid images of them in my mind and by the end of the book I was crying…it was entertaining, witty and emphasized how strong a woman can be for the sake of her children.

It’s too soon to read books about Covid. I don’t mind when it’s mentioned in passing in books. But we all lived through it. We don’t need constant reminders of how terrible that first year was.

I loved the plot though. And Juliette Fay’s writing. Love having mature main characters.

A later in life romance of two high school friends who were in love with each other but timing wasn't right. Just a feel good story with a bit of drama and family issue. The ending was odd but in a good way

This one was a layered look at second chances at love, friendship and forgiveness. I loved the 40 year span it took for Cal and Helen, both well realized characters, to come back together. I thought the attempts and wish for wronging of the rights was done very realistically. There is a decent amount of the topics in this book may be hard to navigate for some (there is some COVID, isolation, loss, infidelity). I ended up really enjoying this one.

What a sweet, tender, thought-provoking story about the messy layers of love, friendship, and family that entwine when two childhood friends with unfinished business reconnect as young grandparents.

Helen and Cal should have been high school sweethearts, but one disastrous night in the woods upended both their lives. Fast forward forty years and their paths literally cross again--on a woodland trail. Both have little grandkids in tow. That chance meeting changes everything for a second time, but will it keep them chained to the past, or set them free?

As a fan of the tortured hero, I fell hard for Cal, but I also loved Helen, a capable woman unaware of her own strengths. We get to know them as kids, but we understand them through the prism of their mistakes and successes as parents and spouses and yes, grandparents.

I found that to be a unique twist on the theme of second chances.
Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this arc

Mature main characters - grandparents - get a second change after 40 years, when they stumble on each other during a hike. The story is a dual timeline between today and their high school friendship. They each have family and friends, which provides great interaction and plot complications. I consider this book women’s fiction with an element of romance.

**SPOILERS This book has COVID and isolation as a major premise and plot point. Also death of a parent, death of a spouse, emotional infidelity, and physical infidelity.

This was not the book for me because I have a difficult time with infidelity of any form written as acceptable. I was also not a fan of the resolution and ending, which was so disappointing because I loved the author’s previous book. However, this is a unique set of characters and a relevant plot that I’m sure many readers will relate to.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC to read and review. All opinions are my own.

This was a cute, heart warming read that touched on getting a second chance at love, family, friendship, forgiveness and redemption.
This novel takes places over a span of 40 years, and follows Cal and Helen. They had one night together during their senior year, and then moved on and never saw each other again, until they do years later.
The premise of the book had a lot of promise, but this one just wasn't for me. I found it hard to get invested in these characters, and while I know Covid happened during our lifetime, it's still so strange to read about it in books.
It had some cute moments, some even sadder moments, but overall the ending left me unsatisfied.

Thankyou NetGalley and William Morrow or Custom House for this ARC. The Half of If is set to be released on April 11, 2023.

Juliette Fay does it again — she creates characters we come to love, commiserate with, and cheer on as they navigate the difficult waters of modern love and parenting. Who hasn’t daydreamed about righting the wrongs committed or endured in our formative years? Helen Spencer, seen both as a teenager and many years later, is a strong woman with a secret that threatens to drown her. Serendipity and courage conspire to keep her afloat long enough to face her past. Will she get a mulligan? And what will be the consequences?
Smart humor and edgy action propel this page turner. You may think you know where it’s going. But you don’t know The Half of It.

The Half of It is an extremely enjoyable read. The first part of the book alternates between the present when Helen bumps into Cal from high school (2021) and 40 years earlier where we learn the details about their friendship and why that haven’t been in touch. Many times with a dual timeline story I want to be in one place or the other, but hear both were equally as enjoyable.

Many of us may wonder “if only” or “how could one event have such a ripple” but this book explores that in a wonderfully, human way. As we learn more about Helen and Cal and how their lives turned out, I felt for them each and how teenage missteps can forever shape our lives.

They reconnect and spend play dates with their grandchildren and it was such a sweet and lovely story. Cal is married and Helen is widowed, so at the core of the relationship is the bonds of their 15 year old selves. There aren’t any villains in this story, but real adult challenges and choices. And thankfully with a fairly happy ending.

I’ll also note that this book is set during Covid and acknowledged those difficulties and struggles without making it such a focus or a hard read. I really appreciated that since I’ve found myself unwittingly reading Covid-centric books that have been heavier than what I thought ids signed up for == I’m looking at you ‘Romantic Comedy”.

Juliette Fay has a delightful way of telling a story and she does not disappoint with The Half of It! Sit down in a comfy chair with your favorite beverage and you will enjoy every minute of this wonderful page turner.

Helen and Cal's story spans over 40 years. The storyline is real life and is brilliantly told with a perfectly layered dual timeline that will tug at your heartstrings without being sappy. Ms. Fay does a wonderful job of character development because you will feel like you know the characters personally.

The Half of It is a later in life love story with all of the highs, lows, and second-guessing made in between. I would highly recommend this book!

Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy of this book.

This book was a delight to read! I believe it is going to hit well with audiences. It is about later in life characters that still have a lot of life left to live, and take the opportunity for second chances by forgiving others, and themselves, for mistakes made while young and still learning.

The characters were delightful, and realistic. I found the friendships to be accurate, and family relationships and dynamics true to life. I loved how the author wrote her "mature" characters as not old! 58 year old friends that gossip and support each other like school girls, one continues her life-long habit of a daily run. So true! These are not washed up grannies. Meanwhile, they still care for children, grandchildren and have already lived full lives. They all move on to the next part of their lives while reflecting on choices made that led to circumstances and decisions that may not be ideal, but they made the best of, and take opportunities to live life to the fullest starting now.

This book felt like a kitchen table chat with friends, or a walk through a neighborhood to catch up. There was one storyline that I felt was a little far fetched, the ending seemed rushed and not quite as intimate as the rest of the book, but this book was a joy to read, I enjoyed every page. 4.5 stars

The emotion packed in to this book was amazing. I loved getting to know Cal and Helen and the trajectory of their love story hit me right in the gut. This novel felt real and relatable. It's the story of two lives that have lived and even though it wasn't always filled with happiness, it was full of happy moments.

This is a good book. The two main characters are Helen and Cal. They have known each other all their lives. When they were in high school they ran track together and declared their love, but something broke them up. They both married other people and had kids. They meet again when Helen’s husband died and she moved to Carl’s hometown where her daughter lived. They renewed their friendship. They each had issues but together they worked them out and fell in love again.

So I thought that this would be a fun little rom-com and it was not. Especially that ending I cannot believe that's how she decided to end this story there is already a fair amount of conflict due to this being a second chance romance with a significant time skip between the romantic opportunities. The story is cute but I couldn't really get into especially witht the references to covid i read to escape not be reminded of the world so i could do without being reminded of covid in what i think are going to be my fun light easy reads.

I couldn’t relate to the characters so I had a really hard time getting into this one unfortunately.

Thank you NetGalley for eARC in exchange for an honest review

This is a second-chance love story with an over-50 main character, who is herself a whole mess, and I love her.

It's also a historical fiction love story, set in the 70s, with all the teen angst you could possibly want.

And it's a story of loss during COVID, both the lost lives of loved ones and the lost relationships due to distancing.

And it's about the wholeness that each of us carry within.

"My atypical family situation is not your problem."

What a fascinating mixed bag of a book this is. The Half of It is a warm-hearted dramady for grown-ups who have been around the block and know that the block stretches many more miles beyond where it began. It’s fascinating in its imperfections, but some organizational choices put this one below a DIK for me.

Helen Iannucchi Spencer is a grandma with three adult children and a fairly loveless marriage behind her. She has many regrets under her belt, and at least one of those regrets stems from a night she spent in the woods with her teenage confidant and former on/off boyfriend Cal Crosby. That night they got so lost after venturing to a cave for a private talk and a first time encounter – and which led to Cal giving Helen chlamydia and their parents - and his girlfriend - being infuriated with them. The chlamydia and Helen’s perceived infertility result, in their own ways, in the aforementioned loveless marriage. When Helen meets Cal by chance in a local park while they’re both entertaining their grandchildren, a lot of old wounds are reopened.

Also on Helen’s mind: the travails of her three children. There’s Barbara, married to ‘gentle giant’ Cormac, who owns Cormac Confectionary, a bakery where Helen keeps the books. They adopted Lana, but have been battling infertility to deliver a biological child. Barbara wants Helen to sell her house and move closer to her and her husband, but Helen wavers at the decision.

Grumpy manchild Danny is a globetrotting but unsuccessful adventurer and documentary filmmaker who’s never put down roots and accepts constant cash infusions from Helen. And solid-and-steady Sam is romantically lovelorn, estranged from his long-term girlfriend Kiersten, who is reluctant to marry him.

Cal has a complicated relationship with his daughter, Janel, who has produced a frenetically active toddler named Logan and a baby named Mackenzie, and also founded a chain of whiskey bars that went under during the pandemic.

Cal and Helen were friends once upon a time; he was the big man on campus, she was the loner athlete, and they both ran on the track team. It might have become more, but teenage awkwardness and that night drove them apart and led them to marry other people. Cal’s marriage is currently on the rocks, and Helen has been a widow for years.

Their chance meeting sparks Cal to ask Helen for a second chance at friendship. But doing that means confronting a lot of ugliness and a whole lot of bad memories. Can they salvage anything from the wreck they’ve made of their lives?

A couple of plotting choices made me rank this book at a B, but that doesn’t mean The Half of It is a bad novel. It’s easy to love Helen, a first-generation American whose parents took thirteen years to conceive her, a woman who tries to help her kids but often ends up being a busybody by mistake and an enabler at worse. Now in her fifties she’s making a lot of life changes. Those changes aren’t all about Cal; she reconnects with her best friend from high school, whom she dropped after a big fight related to her first marriage. Helen is imperfectly imperfect, and her kids are the same. I also have to give a hat tip to Juliette Fay for the way she captures mid-state, medium town Massachusetts and all of its beauties and mendacities.

Cal has to make amends for the terrible things he did during his younger years, and for some readers his atonement might not be enough. But he’s flawed enough to be human. His relationship with Helen is strong and carefully developed, and they make sense as friends and lovers.

It’s also easy to love the way the book portrays the thorny and complex relationships Cal and Helen have with the past. The author initially does a good job weaving between the present day, flashbacks to Cal and Helen’s shared teenage years, and Helen’s marriage to her late husband, Jim. Unfortunately, at one point we learn something important through a conversation between Cal and Helen, then immediately we get a flashback that explicitly shows us exactly how it happened, with no new details. The story could have used a little bit of narrative economy.

This won’t be a book for those who hate infidelity, specifically emotional infidelity. And it won’t be a novel for anyone avoiding pandemic talk. And, most importantly, it’s not a novel for those looking for a happily ever after ending. But The Half of It is warm and worth a read.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local bookshop
Visit our Amazon Storefront

A story of friendship, family, lost love, teenage angst and redemption. Such a charming read with the right combination of maturity, frivolity and anticipation. Such a pleasant read after a thriller!