Thanks to Book Club Favorites for the copy of this book.

"No two people ever loved each other the same way."

In The Half Moon, we follow the story of Malcolm and Jess, whose silhouettes are shown on the cover. It took me a long time to see that, but it's so clever! Malcolm and Jess go through a lot in their relationship, including some very common and hard situations: infertility and financial hardship. In dual timelines, we see their relationship form and fall apart as these stressors occur. We also see the success of Malcolm's bar, The Half Moon, ebb and flow over the timeline.

I loved getting to know these characters in the beginning, the dual timelines, and the small-town bar setting. I thought it had some prospects as a found family and a small-town, character-driven novel that I'd love as we followed Malcolm and Jess's story. As I passed the halfway point of the book, though, the storyline didn't pick up and was just so slow that I became uninterested in what was happening, and the characters became a bit unlikeable. In the end, this fell a little flat for me. It is also VERY heavy on infertility, so if that storyline is triggering for you, skip this book.