What a beautiful, beautiful book! I am happy that I got to devour this lovely story. In “The Half of It,” Juniper, a writer living in New York, discovers that she has a half-sister, Cara, who lives in Ireland. Cara invites Juniper (June) to her wedding, which June uses as an opportunity to get to know her sister and to write an assignment about. But June has a hard time letting people in. June never knew her (or rather their) father, she didn’t have a relationship with her mother before her mother passed, her grandmother who was left to raise her never made her feel loved, and she then bounced around foster care before becoming emancipated. So getting to know, and growing fond of, Cara and her family is both enticing and incredibly scary.

And Cara’s best friend, Aidan, is also very enticing. Aidan has been struggling since the death of his brother, having moved home to help his family with their pub, and trying to figure out what he wants or can even want that he can do next. The chemistry between June and Aidan is instant but neither wants to mess anything up, especially with June leaving soon, and with both of their connections to Cara. When June gets a call that puts what she thought she knew into question, she has to navigate these new feelings without hurting anyone, including herself.

It is almost hard for me to wrap my arms around what made this book so magical but I think at the center were the characters who were flawed in such an authentic way and so kind hearted at the same time. Sometimes, it can feel like the plot drives the character’s personality (if that makes any sense) but here the characters are so full, well-crafted, and real. Even the “secondary” characters all felt three dimensional and compelling. And the tenderness and kindness of almost all of the characters was really moving. No one made perfect decisions and no one was completely selfless but at their core, they were trying their best all the same. It made for a really moving story.

June’s character was also super special to me. I have such a tender spot for characters who don’t think they deserve love and kindness or aren’t sure how to accept it but sometimes it can feel really frustrating to read 300 pages of them constantly rejecting that love or having miscommunications because of it. I felt like “The Half of It” did a really great job of slowly showing how a character like June could let her walls down, feel like she has to put them up, and then slowly bring them down again. Seeing that character growth was really poignant.

Plus add some really well written spice and I will be thinking about this book for a while.

Thank you to Theresa Christine and NetGalley for providing this eARC! All opinions are my own.

What a wonderful book that transported me to Ireland and took away my problems while I read. I thought the spice level was appropriate for the story. The characters were likable, and the book was well written. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.