Women's Divorce Fiction, 400 pages
Published April 11, 2023 by William Morrow Paperbacks
One perfect night. Forty years of buried hurt. One chance to make it right. Can the past ever be fixed? With humor, heart, and grace, USA Today bestselling author Juliette Fay delivers an immensely satisfying page-turner, perfect for fans of Josie Silver and Jojo Moyes.
“I’m wondering if we can be friends again.”
When fifty-eight-year-old Helen Spencer reviews her life, what she sees are the mistakes. Over the years, things seemed to go sideways incrementally, one little wrong decision at a time. She can even pinpoint where it all started to go awry: a wonderous, romantic night in the woods her senior year of high school with a boy named Cal Crosby. A night she would soon work hard to forget.
Forty years, one marriage, three children, and one grandbaby later, suddenly there he is—Cal (expletive) Crosby!—right in front of her with grandchildren of his own in tow. The chance to finally get some answers and sort out what happened is within reach. But Helen would much prefer to keep that night and all the fury, hurt, and sorrow that followed tightly locked away where she doesn’t have to face it.
Cal Crosby, however, is ready to talk. He has no idea of the can of worms he’s about to open. In fact, he doesn’t know the half of it.
A warm, poignant, propulsive novel about settling the past, rekindling lost friendships, and rediscovering love when you least expect it.
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)
First lines—"Helen sits on her favorite bench in the woods by the river, boot heels dug into the stony New England earth, body hitched forward slightly to accommodate the baby backpack."
Helen and Cal were friends in high school, where neither of them are in the 'popular' crowd. Things change, people got hurt, life goes on. Fast forward forty years and these two are thrown together again. Can the hurt, anger, and betrayal ever be forgiven?
I loved watching Cal and Helen rediscover each other but boy did they have a lot to work through. As I got a look at their past through flashbacks, the couple became more real to me. They grew from insecure teens to adults with some of those insecurities still in place.
The Half of It is an excellent look at misunderstandings, and the growth it takes to get past all of that angst for a second chance of happiness. This was another fantastic story by Juliette Fay and like always, I look forward to her next book.
