We Used to Be Friends by Amy Spalding was such a great read about honesty, friendships growing apart and love. beautifully messy and honest The story alternates between James and Kat. They were best friends once, but their life has taken them in different directions.

What I really enjoyed about this story was the complexity of friendships during high school and the awkwardness that comes with getting older. Kat and James feel like real people and felt relatable. The POVS alternating allowed us to see their perspective in the story.

There were times this book made me laugh out loud. I felt that the pacing was good, and tension built between these characters were well done.
This book really resonated with me. It discussed how relationships evolve as people change.

Thank you so much to the publisher, the author, and netgalley for sending me an e-ARC to read. I gave this book 3 stars.

This was a heartbreaking and totally relatable story about the end of a friendship, but also so much more than that.

Having been through friendships ending, I thought this story captured the pain, confusion, and growing distance really well. This wasn’t a friendship that ended after a fight, but one that ended slowly as two people changed and grew apart.

While I think I identified more closely with James throughout the story (I also distance myself when hurting), there were moments when I identified with Kat as well.

Both girls are experiencing life changing shifts in their worlds, but they respond to them very differently. James is dealt a devastating blow and shuts down to protect herself, pushing everyone away. She listens to Kat talk about the changes in her own life, but James doesn’t reciprocate and share any of her pain or anger with her. But Kat also never asks and seems unconcerned about the changes in her friend.

On the other hand, Kat’s changes are mostly positive, though still emotionally confusing. Kat is filled with so many doubts and lingering grief, but masks it, hiding behind a positive, bubbly attitude. She throws herself into a new friendships and a new relationship, making James feel left out or a third (or fifth) wheel whenever she sees her. She’s angry when she finds out everything James didn’t tell her, but doesn’t really consider why.

Communication may have saved their friendship, but sometimes friendships do need to be left behind. Neither of them wishes the other ill, they both still care, but they are just moving in completely different directions.

I was happy with the way the story ended. The author didn’t feel the need to “fix” everything but kept a window open.

Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book through Net Galley on behalf of the publisher for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I expected a lot more from this book This book was a DNF and ultimately just not for me unfortunately. I understand the authors perspective just wasn’t my vibe sadly.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one still. I liked it while I was reading it but I found it very forgettable. I did really like the characters and the story line.

The unusual formatting of this story, where we see things from one perspective linearly and one in reverse, was definitely intriguing. That being said, this made it difficult to come to a resolution. I wanted to know more about the decisions James made, and since Kat didn't get those answers, it is all the more unsettling. However, friendships don't always last, so this book does a good job of leaving you with that uneasy feeling.

There are some really great examples of telling me what the characters feel instead of showing me in this book. Further, the action is...not particularly cathartic, or even interesting.

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. The writing was not my favorite--there were over a handful of chapters breaks throughout just chapter one alone, and the characters' dialogue was off-putting. This book felt like it was trying to get on teenagers' level but only ended up imitating them poorly.

Did not finish - read to 58%
I have been sitting on this book for a while and finally took the time to pick it up. I had heard a lot of good things about it when it was released but it just wasn't for me. I ended up deciding to stop reading around the 58% mark.

This book is told through alternating point of view - James and Kat, but it is also told in two directions, so one story moves forward in time and the other one moves backward recapping events. When we meet James, she and Kat are no longer friends and James is about to go to college and in Kat's story we start at the beginning of their last high school year.

The reason that I decided to give up on it is because I am not sure where this story could go that would make me want to finish it. It is all about their friendship but I was not really invested enough in either character to really give it my all. From what I read, both Kat and James are flawed and their friendship suffered because of both of them.

Kat is the popular girl, seemingly self-centered, and her dialogue was written too well there were a lot of "likes" and "duhs" when she speaks which was very annoying to read and very stereotypical. Although I know a lot of people talk like this is was off-putting to read. James is part of the track and field tiean and quiet, almost nerdy. It was a little weird that these two were friends and it was hard to tell how they got there becuse of this story. Kat also would probably have more of a clique is she was popular, before she befriends all of Quinn's friends. (At least this is how it would have been when I was in High School).

Although I liked that there was a focus on LGBTQ+, it felt fast and forced at times, at one point Kat had no idea she liked girls, and then she is all in. That is great, but seemed a little unrealistic. Overall this romance seems forced.

While I found these things problematic, the biggest issue was the friendship between Kat and James. James did not give enough of herself to the friendship and Kat was too self-centered to even notice that James was detaching. Both were at fault in their own ways, but I was able to figure this much out at 58% and decided I didn't need to read any more. I didn't really like how either character was handling it or themselves.

Sadly I was not able to get into this book. IT was not at all what I was expecting and was heavier than anticipated. Because of that it was hard to read for me and it's just not the book for me. Many others have excellent reviews for it. Case of it's me, not you.

A slow, painful reflection on a friendship breakup of two childhood best friends. I love YA where a friendship is the primary focus, and this hit a lot of those buttons for me. It was quite painful to read at times because of how deep it cut, how relatable it was, but all the more important to me because of it. The converging timelines felt a bit messy to me, and I also felt that the pain of James and Kat splitting apart could have been heightened had they or their friendship felt more—I hesitate to say it—"likable." I generally don't need a likable protagonist, but I think this book could have used a little more of that.

I received a digital advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What happens when one of the people you love most in the world becomes someone you can't stand?

Something about this book made me think it would have a happy ending. It does not. I would call the ending hopeful but slightly unresolved. But it was a relatable (and realistic) story that was ultimately well worth reading. Two inseparable best friends, James and Kat, find that sometimes growing up does not mean growing together, and what that means for them as individuals.

The dual timelines were, at times, hard to follow since I couldn't seem to find a rhythm with them, especially because they weren't really working themselves to an easy breaking point. At some point it gets a little hate heavy and you forget why you were supposed to care about their friendship at all. But in the end it was worth the bit of confusion it left me with.

A YA book with a bit of a different spin - the break-up of friends is something not really spoken about, especially when they grow apart. I found this book quite moving and real, and found myself thinking back to my own broken friendships in the past and feeling sad that I can't go back with the benefit of hindsight. I recommend this, and I liked the bisexual representation.

All I knew about We Used to be Friends going into it was that it is told in dual timelines, one moving forward and one moving backwards, and it follows the friendship of Kat and James, a girl with a boy’s name. The story opens in the August after graduation and we are introduced to James as she briefly explains the breakdown of the friendship between her and her best friend, Kat. James is heartbroken but her life is moving forward as she is leaving for college, but she does make the effort to text Kat and ask her if they can keep their Christmas tradition. We then jump back to the September of their senior year and we are introduced to Kat. Kat is having the worst time as she learns her boyfriend Matty cheated on her which is made worse but James and Logan’s seemingly amazing relationship. Kat and James both have absent mothers in their lives, but while James’ parents got divorced, Kat’s mother died and her father is considering dating after two years and this doesn’t sit well with Kat, which leads to her meeting Quinn, a girl from school who is instantly strikes up a friendship with.

As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we have moved back again to June of James and Kat’s senior year. We can see in the space of their final year James and Kat have grown apart. By the time Logan and James have broken up which explains their awkward conversation in the first chapter but we can see that James was trying to hold onto her friendship with Kat but Kat displays a very selfish attitude that I don’t like and I completely agree with James about them moving apart especially since Quinn has seemingly replaced James in Kat’s life. However, after graduating Kat makes a huge deal about James not telling her that her parents had split up or that she was going to a different college when she should have been supportive when these were things that James didn’t want to talk about. Afterwards she heads to Logan’s house and kisses him as that is the only place she wants to be in that moment, and we move forward again to November of their final year. We can see that even in November James and Kat’s friendship was unravelling as Kat becomes closer to Quinn and they eventually being “dating”, we also know that James is hiding things from Kat because she doesn’t feel as close to her friend anymore and Kat is choosing the share more stuff with Quinn because she is more opinionated than James in her opinion.

As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, I was really enjoying the story and the dual timelines isn’t as distracting as I thought it was going to be and it adds another layer to this story. When we jump back to April we get to see more of Kat and Quinn’s relationship, but it is clear that James isn’t happy about it especially since she refuses to form any sort of friendship with Quinn driving a wedge between them. However, we also learn more about her home life and how she isn’t on the best terms with her mother since she split up with her father and not just because of the breakup but because it is impacting her future as she was rejected by UCLA, but can’t go to Michigan because her father can’t afford it. It was nice knowing that James didn’t plan to keep it from Kat, but the more time passed the less she actually felt that she needed to tell Kat every single detail of her life. However, we do she a vindictive streak in James we haven’t seen yes as she makes some comments about Kat and Quinn’s relationship, not in a homophobic way, it is just she believes she knows Kat better than Quinn and while she knows Kat likes Quinn, she also believes that the charade with prom isn’t about equality but more of Kat’s desire to be prom Queen and nothing else. Kat’s relationship with her father is also strained as he starts dating again and she isn’t ready for her father to have another woman in his life but rather than talking to him like a sensible person she doesn’t say anything and I can’t already tell it is going to come out in a huge outburst later on in the novel.

As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, we jump forward to January, where we mainly follow Kat in her relationship with Quinn and her applications for college. Things being their downhill spiral when she learns from Logan that James broke up with him and not the other way around as James led her to believe. After that she learns that Quinn lied to her about applying early for the same college as she was scared, she wasn’t going to get in and when Kat is accepted, she begins feeling that everything isn’t as easy as she first thought it was. She also had the added issue of her dad dating Diane who is really nice, but she feels that her mother is being erased by this new woman in her father’s life. We don’t see much from James here only a few text messages which are short and to the point which Kat hates. Despite following two characters, I personally like James a lot more than Kat even though we don’t utterly understand everything that is going on right now. We jump backwards to February, where James and Kat are still trying to make their friendship work in the same way it did the year before, even with a trip to Disneyland sans boyfriends but Kat brings Quinn making James the third wheel and it really hurts her but she goes along with it anyway.

As we cross into the second half of the novel, the trip doesn’t end well as Kat and James end up arguing, James feels hurt that Kat is still friends with Logan and didn’t tell her and while she doesn’t say it James also resents being the third wheel but before we can get further into this we jump forward to March. After the Disneyland incident, the gap between James and Kat has widened even further and both can feel it and it gets strange for Kat when she has her first real argument with Quinn as Quinn tells Kat she wants to be seen for who she is not the perfect girlfriend that Kat has imagined her to be in her mind. Surprisingly, it is Diane who gives Kat the advice she needs, and it works helping Quinn and Kat’s relationship get back on track especially since Quinn has been accepted by the same college. They also start a petition for the rules surrounding prom King and Queen to be changed, however, Kat has been neglecting James when she should see that her best friend needs her right now or at least have the confidence to say she knows that she broke up with Logan and ask why but she does none of these things opting to focus solely on Quinn, which seemed like a really crappy thing to do but we jump backwards to December. In December, we get to spend more time with James who is struggling with the new arrangement of her family but makes do except when she is forced to spend Christmas Eve which her mother and her new boyfriend, Todd and not with her father she bursts into tears and that isn’t something James does often unlike Kat. I did like the fact that even James can see that the version of Quinn, Kat is dating in her mind is absolutely nothing like the real Quinn, but she doesn’t say anything as Kat seems to be happy.

As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, as we move through the Christmas period and New Year’s we are beginning to see the gaps in events filling in and it changes our perspective on certain events and characters but what I am really hoping to find out is why Logan and James broke up in the first place and how they get back to where they were in the opening chapter and how James and Kat had the massive meltdown we saw that ended their friendship. We get to see how prom plays out and it isn’t good as James decides not to go causing so much anxious and worry in Kat, but Kat doesn’t even see that she is part of the problem. However, this is all overlooked when Quinn and Kat are crowned prom couple which was a special moment for Kat that James wasn’t there to see. They also say I love you for the first time and truly mean it and it marks a milestone in their relationship which was nice to see. Kat is also getting along with Diane and coming to terms with her mother’s death, she hasn’t gotten over it but she understands that it is ok to like Diane as a person and to be happy for her father and yet still miss her mother. However, I was really angry that during the Christmas period, Kat went to visit James after having a bad day and didn’t even ask how her holiday was going or even pay enough attention to notice that James’ mother and all of her stuff was gone which was extremely obvious. At this point we realise that neither James or Kat is perfect, but Kat seems to have more blame in the relationship falling apart than James as James tries as hard as she can but Kat just doesn’t seem to notice until there is a massive James shaped hole in her life and by that point it is already too late. As we jump backwards to October, we learn that James’ mother was having an affair and left their family for Todd and in the wake of that she realises that the 15-year plan she has created for her and Logan was based on their relationship. As that relationship hasn’t worked she breaks up with Logan even though it breaks her heart to do it and his too, however, the next morning her mother is gone, Logan is gone from her life and the only other constant Kat is drifting away thanks to the introduction of Quinn so James feels completely alone and I can’t disagree with her. If I had to take sides during this friendship, I’d be with James all the way because Kat should have been aware that James’ group of close friends was nowhere near as big as hers and been more attentive and supportive of her supposed best friend.

As we cross into the final section of the novel, we jump forward to July where we get to see the collapse of the friendship and while both says some hurtful words, Kat leaves no longer having a best friend and realising that she was right about being selfish and falling so hard into Quinn that she didn’t have time for anyone else and she begins making an effort to make herself better but she still doesn’t reach out to James and time is passing quickly when we bounce backwards to August. The book ends just before where it began which was nice but I was a little disappointed we didn’t get to see whether the girls mended their friendship since that was what everything had been building too. Overall, We Used to be Friends was a very interesting and the bouncing bath and forth in time isn’t disruptive at all as it helps piece the story together a little at a time from either girl’s perspective but the ending/beginning was really lacking for me.

I did not finish reading this book, so my rating is based on when I stopped reading. I'm ordinarily a big fan of Amy Spalding, the multiple timelines just wasn't for me.

Unfortunately, I could not finish this book, however, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Netgalley.

Friendships can be intense in adolescence, when young people are struggling to define themselves. Friendships can be a tool for one defining themselves in relation to their close friends, but it can also turn into a barrier to struggle against. This book explores a best friendship that is struggling to accommodate the changes two young women are experiencing. Using the alternating chapter perspective that's really popular in YA romance was an interesting and insightful choice.

Really enjoyed this, I felt it was quite relatable probably to most people - it definitely made me think about the friendships I haven't pit enough effort into recently. I look forward to reading more by this author. Thank you

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that relationships end. Romantic ones, friendships, and even casual acquaintances can and will come and go. That doesn’t make it any easier when they do end though. Growing up is intense and learning how to navigate the changes that occur doesn’t always come easy. We Used to Be Friends plots the senior year of Kat and James, two girls who have been best friends since kindergarten. From both perspectives, it follows the same sort of story format that the musical The Last Five Years used where each character tells the story in one order. James opens the book at the end of the summer after their senior year, as she’s about to leave for college and then Kat’s perspective starts before their senior year begins.

When I say that this story hurt, I mean it broke me in the best way possible. I had a really important friendship end when I was a junior in high school and the impact of that has followed me well into adulthood. Reading this book at 24 I wished I could have handed it to my 17 year old self. I think that it was not only comforting but also might have had me taking different steps from what I did. To see how the choices that each character made caused ripples throughout each other’s lives helped to highlight what it can take to make a friendship work.

Kat and James are a bit of personality opposites, similar enough to make it work but when outside circumstances begin to come in between them it begins to cause a schism that ultimately changes their relationship entirely. Kat is a bit of an eternal optimist, using this to compete with anxiety about changes she experiences. James, on the other hand, experiences unexpected changes and ends up catastrophizing the events which leads to even more unexpected changes. As a teenager it’s easy to wish the best for life and to think that you have everything figured out. Being a senior can give you that invincible high on life feeling and having to accept the open endedness of the future is a struggle. It doesn’t help that high schoolers are immature, even those seniors that think they have it all figured out! When you begin to get caught up in your own issues, you can lose sight of what’s going on around you, often to the point of neglecting things you shouldn’t.

As the story unfolds, Kat sees things falling together while James sees things falling apart. They both had their own lessons to learn and while these did pull them apart, it also allowed them to grow as their own people. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend that you have your entire life figured out and that everything will go according to plan but in the end you have to face things no matter how hard it might be. Amy Spalding did a fantastic job of weaving the pairs stories together and giving them unique voices while still being inexplicably linked. I loved seeing into each of their perspectives and connecting the dots of the overall arc as the novel progressed.

Having a friendship end at any age is hard but when you’re in high school when things change with a “best friend for life” it can be absolutely heartbreaking. One of my favorite things about We Used to Be Friends was how open ended so many aspects of it were. Reminiscent of life itself it drove home for me the fact that there are no guarantees and there is always a chance for things to change. We want happy endings, we want things to turn out perfect, we want all of our plans to work out but that’s not something that we’re promised. This was a touching and realistic novel about growing up. It navigates those relationship changes and allows the reader to reflect on the choices that each character made. Friendships are a two way street and when you accumulate so many years with someone it’s easy to assume that nothing will ever get in the way of many more years. We might not all get the chance to reconcile or have the ability to make different choices. To put it frankly, losing friends SUCKS and this book illustrated an almost grieving process between a best friend duo. This is one of my new favorites and an easy five star rating at that. A highly cathartic read for anyone who has found themselves in a changing friendship I couldn’t recommend this more!

DNF. Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy! I decided to not keep reading this one, it was not for me. Thanks!