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!

A warm, lovely second chance at love romance novel about finding a lost love after 40 years. This novel takes you on a journey of 2 lovers who experienced a night of passion in their senior year of high school only to separate and move on and marrying another, having children, and grandchildren only to find each other again 40 years later.

This was not my favorite Juliette Fay novel, but it was still enjoyable. It is hard to find characters of a mature age in current women's fiction, so this one stands out. I enjoyed the characters and the supporting characters. It was believable to see how adult children deal with their parents finding a second chance at love. Overall, I would recommend this one to mature readers looking for mature characters.

I wanted to love The Half of It by Juliette Fay. I was in the mood for a romance but this book just didn't do it for me. Sorry, but I just can NOT t wrap my head around the draw to a man who treats a woman like crap which is what happens in this story.
The story is split between past and present and all the messiness of the pandemic just made it difficult for this reader to enjoy.
The writing is good but some of the vocabulary I felt, was too lofty and not appropriate for a romance novel.
The ending was abrupt and I didn't love the story..
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my review.

An intensely relatable book. I'm going to have to get used to reading novels that acknowledge covid. The characters and relationship dynamics felt totally believable - nothing too exaggerated or too precious.

" 'You need a dose of beauty,' Barb says. And she's right. There's something relentlessly uplifting about being surrounded my masterful works of art, no matter how bereft and loveless you feel."

Juliette Fay's THE HALF OF IT is, simply put, a dose of beauty. There's something so recognizable in this story of two old high school friends who owe it to themselves to forgive each other after all these years. It's in the way Fay crafts her dialogue, like you could pour yourself a cup of coffee and join the chat. The way she recounts a scene as if you've been there too, and you find yourself nodding along in agreement, or shaking your head in frustration. And the way she invites you in to a story where you feel so at home, you don't want it to end.

I'm a longtime fan of Fay's work, and it's no exaggeration to say I enjoyed every word of THE HALF OF IT. Much gratitude to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read early.

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.

I received an ARC of this book through Netgalley.

Contents: mild sexual situations

This one was a big meh for me. I didn't feel the romance, couldn't wrap my head around the draw to a man who treated you like crap. The author writes well, but 4 times i encountered words i had to look up. In a romance novel!
Even worse, one of them was used twice. Throw in a sad ending and I'm tapping out.

I did enjoy reading this book! It was quite a bit slower at some parts, but all in all it was a quick and easy read.

The Half of It is a beautiful story split between the past and a gripping present that's grappling with the harsh realities of the covid-19 pandemic. It delivers a powerful message that it's never too late to right your wrongs and try again. I cried for so long after finishing because of the ending. If you love the second chance and right person, wrong time trope, you'll love this.

My main gripe with this story is that the ending felt a bit rushed. I wish we had more time at the end where everything was good before it was over. But other than that, it was lovely.

Thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow Books, and Custom House Books for the e-ARC!