Lust for living is the true love of your life

I don’t particularly believe in soulmates. I believe that two people meet and fall in love, but I’m not sure how much faith I have in fate that you can meet ‘the one’.

I feel like Natalie Winter, author of The Moments, is on a similar wavelength to me. Matthew and Myrtle, our leading lad and lady, were born a month apart and are meant to be together however they haven’t met yet. They’re on the path to true love for sure, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of the book.

The chapters are laid out in my favourite fashion – split between the two characters. We start with Matthew’s birth as his mother Grace and father Luke talk of how longed-for their son is.

Next is Myrtle’s birth. Parents Daphne and Elliott are young but excited to tackle new parenthood. And so the story unfolds.

We follow Matthew and Myrtle through school, bullying, failed relationships, traumas, accidents and travelling the globe and we watch the pair of them blossom as they age throughout the chapters.

The first thing I really enjoyed about this book was the length of the chapters. I’m very much an ‘I’ll read to the end of this chapter then I’ll start making dinner’ or ‘I’ve only got 10 pages to go then I can go for a pee’ kind of person, but in The Moments, each chapter is around four to five pages long so big moments are covered swiftly and, if you’re bursting for the toilet or need to nip out to the shops, you won’t be delayed.

Although the style of writing is different, Natalie’s storytelling reminded me a lot of Sally Hughes, especially her novel Normal People. Straight to the point, no messing around, you are introduced to the character and immediately transported to their world.

I loved Matthew and Myrtle. Similar in beliefs and feelings, they have a way of seeing the world that made me embrace life a little more. Growing old doesn’t mean you have to stop doing the things you want, becoming the person you want to be and seeing the countries you want to visit.

I really enjoyed how Natalie didn’t put the sole focus on the book on Matthew and Myrtle finding each other. Sure, occasionally they cross paths with a smile on the bus or at the same wedding venue, but it’s not the only focus of the story.

The driver of the book is watching Matthew and Myrtle learn to live the life they want, not the one others deem they should be living.

I loved their thirst for life, I sympathised with their career woes and the questions they asked themselves regarding their love lives. Neither felt the need to settle for a relationship that didn’t feel right, and I felt their anguish as they cared for their parents and took on their worries as their own. In a nutshell, I really enjoyed The Moments. I initially thought the coming together of Matthew and Myrtle would be the underlying plot in the book, when in theory, I lost myself in their personalities and genuinely feel like a better person for knowing them. Of course they aren’t real people, but Natalie’s masterful characterisation gives you the notion that you know them.

Matthew and Myrtle’s lust for life taught me that no matter your age, you can still experience things outside your four walls. Don’t wait for old age to slow you down, do what you can when you can.