Wow, this book hit me right in the feels. An original story with a surprisingly unoriginal plot, in that, losing friends happens so often and it’s a shock not more people talk /write about it. And as someone who cut a really toxic friend whom I, as the story would say, lived in a “snow globe” with from my life last year, I certainly have looked for literature that would help me make sense of the emptiness a friend breakup can leave.

While I could tell this was YA at times, the way Cleo was not as self-aware as say an adult would be, I think the theme just resonates so strongly with anyone who has experienced this pain. The author poignantly shows the breakdown of a friendship, one that doesn’t end in a necessarily happy resolution. I especially loved the epilogue and how it brought Cleo’s character development full circle.

I’ll definitely be looking out for more by this author.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of WHEN YOU WERE EVERYTHING by Ashley Woodfolk in exchange for my honest review.***

4.5 STARS

Cleo and Layla are best friends. Until they aren’t. Cleo, jealous when Layla’s world expanding with new friends and opportunities, sees her friend’s growth as rejection. She strikes out and Layla’s friends strike back. Cleo escalates with a cruel comment about Layla’s stuttering and things go from bad to worse.

Friendships are complicated. Friends don’t come with with instruction manuals explaining how to handle conflict. Teenagers don’t have a breadth of experience navigating relationship difficulties. Cleo has the additional stress of her parents impending divorce, making her even clingier. I empathized with her on an intellectual level, but still found her pretty awful. I give Ashley Woodfolk a lot of credit fir creating such a complex usually unlikable narrator. Often I’ll read a novel where the protagonist seems to be the writer’s alter ego, a perfect heroine/victim. If Woodfolk sees herself in Cleo, she’s got to be incredibly insightful.

WHEN YOU WERE EVERYTHING starts off with minor relationship infractions and escalates to OMG she did NOT do that. At times Cleo seemed to be comparing a paper cut to an amputation, her attacks were so personal cruel. Layla wasn’t the one escalating things, her new friend Sloane was the antagonist. Cleo, through her hurt, blamed Layla.

The conclusion was my least favorite aspect of the story. I have nothing negative to say about it, just that for me it didn’t live up to the rest of WHEN YOU WERE EVERYTHING.

WHEN YOU WERE EVERYTHING will resonate with anyone who’s ever been a teenager and had a friend.