I thought my heart was going to burst as I read The Moments; thankfully, it wasn't my heart but my tear ducts as floods of tears streamed down my face and blurred the beautiful words on the page before me. I couldn't stop reading though, so I read through my mix of sad and happy tears and rather wonderfully felt like I'd been lit up from within as The Moments didn't just steal my heart, it stole my soul.

Myrtle and Matthew are two halves of one whole but they don't know it yet. As we follow them through their lives from birth, with chapters alternating between Myrtle and Matthew, I found myself holding my breath in anticipation several times as their paths so very nearly crossed. As the tension built of 'almost' and 'so very nearly', I willed the stars to align so that the pair would meet and be hit by the proverbial thunderbolt. Feeling sad as the years progressed and Myrtle and Matthew still hadn't met, Natalie Winter reminded us not to dwell on the missed years but rather to accept that maybe they will meet exactly when they're supposed to.

I think because we meet the two main characters as they are born, I really felt as if I was part of their lives. We're present for all of their trials and tribulations, the highs and lows of their lives and privy to their personal insecurities. Neither of them realise how special they are and I do think that this type of insecurity transmits a virtual signal deterring would be mates. Of course when the right person comes along, the 'I'm not worthy' signal magically stops transmitting and everything becomes right with the world. I'm speaking from experience here, which is why Myrtle and Matthew's story resonated so strongly with me; it took long enough but thankfully it didn't take me quite so long to find my other half.

So very highly recommended, do not miss this book especially if you love books by David Nicholls and Jojo Moyes. The Moments actually affected me more than One Day and Me Before You and I really can't praise Natalie Winter highly enough. If this is her debut, I really can't wait to see what she writes next.

Written so beautifully, The Moments is undoubtedly a 5 star book but this simply does not suffice; it deserves to be awarded every star in the universe. This scintillating book touched both my heart and soul and is most definitely my favourite book of the year; it's so good that I could read it all over again right now.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion. ( )

You know when sometimes a book comes along that just really captures your imagination? Well that's how I felt about The Moments as soon as I read the blurb. It reminded me of a mixture of Sliding Doors (the film) and The Versions of Us (the book by Laura Barnett).

I don't want to say very much about the story as I think too much detail would completely spoil it. It's the story of Myrtle and Matthew and we start with the moment they are born. They're completely unconnected though and we follow their lives in short alternating chapters. It took me a little bit of getting into because it was like following two straight lines that never cross. But once I started to get involved in our protagonists' lives I became completely invested in them, wondering at what point the intersection would occur, because surely it would.

I loved Myrtle and Matthew. They're both perfectly drawn and to be a witness to their lives felt like a true privilege. I watched their joy and their sadness, them finding a mate and their relationships ending, dealing with family issues, pets, all the things that life entails, and all the while thinking to myself that here were two people who were so right for each other. I loved how Natalie Winter made both of them not just animal lovers, but people concerned with animal welfare. I also liked their steadfast stoicism in the face of all that life threw at them and the way they were unconsciously holding out for each other.

This is very much a story of moments as the title suggests, each one a vignette which, when added together, form a whole life story, two in fact. It kind of crept up on me, from that beginning where I had to get to know Myrtle and Matthew, to the last 80 pages or so which I spent crying, not because it was devastatingly sad or anything but because there was such beauty in the writing and the conclusion of their story. I'm not sure I've ever cried for so long reading a book.

The Moments is a book that will stay with me. It's compelling and moving, very emotive, a story of life with all its up and downs from beginning to end. It brings forth the question of whether there's someone out there that we are meant to meet, whether our lives are always on the same trajectory or if we'd made a different decision, gone in a different direction, whether that would change things. I found myself groaning several times as Myrtle and Matthew came so close to meeting and then missed each other. Maybe it just wasn't their time.

I'm so pleased to have known Myrtle and Matthew. This book is a joy from start to finish. ( )