This book is a heartfelt, fun read about second chances and self-discovery. We follow Dylan, a rising music star, who has to face her ex-best friend — someone she thought she left in the past. The story takes you through the messy realities of friendship, fame, and finding yourself.

Dana L. Davis does a great job blending humor and emotion, with characters you’ll want to root for. It’s a light yet meaningful read, perfect for fans of YA contemporary fiction.

Dylan and Langston were best friends. One day Langston up and moves to California. Later he becomes a bigtime music star. Dylan hasn't heard from him since. Until one day Dylan's family announces the arrival of Langston and is subsequence stay with them. Will Dylan forgive me and become friends again? Or will she fight her feelings? A cute love story that keeps the reader's interest and the has great characters. A very cute and sweet YA romance book.

Disclaimer: Thank you Skyscape and NetGalley for this review copy and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Written in 1st person POV, Somebody That I Used to Know by Dana L. Davis focuses on childhood best friends Dylan Woods and Langston, who lost touch a decade ago after Langston moved to LA, became a worldwide renowned teen R&B artist named Legendary—then ghosted her—unexpectedly reunite when he comes to stay with her family years later.

I love how the novel starts with Davis’s beautiful writing and storytelling on full display. Her use of language is gorgeous and lyrical. Davis’s authentic, natural-sounding, and colorful dialogue suits her characters, story, and theme and gives her characters distinct voices. Her writing and storytelling combine detailed descriptions that use all five senses and vividly detailed descriptions to create visual images in your mind, lush world-building, imaginative storytelling, and excellently developed complex, relatable, likable, and fallible characters that draw me into her character’s lives and kept me glued to her captivating multilayered story. I love the diversity in race and personality types of her characters. Davis explores issues of racial identity with nuance and subtlety—especially—within the context of adoption throughout the novel.

Dylan’s goal is acceptance into Juilliard. She doesn’t think about Langston much these days and how he left her behind and never contacted her again—even though they were once best friends. She avoids listening to his music or talking about him at all. But feelings of hurt resurface when her parents reveal he’s coming to stay with them for a short while. The rest of her family is thrilled. Dylan—not so much. However, after spending time with him again and discovering he still has the bucket list they created together, Dylan wonders if Langston isn’t as different as she feared.

Gifted, arrogant, and entitled, Langston asks for Dylan’s help to complete the bucket list during his visit. As they clear items off the list, Dylan remembers their past, how good things were between them, their shared love of music, and who she used to be when they were inseparable best friends in those days. Dylan’s feelings for Langston slowly shift from friendship to something deeper without her realizing it. Could she be falling for her ex-best friend?

Brilliant, talented, spunky, kind, nerdy, and competitive, Dylan is a Black teenager totally focused on music, improving her skills, and practicing her violin to get into Juilliard—something she has chosen for herself. Adopted at age four by white parents, Dylan is only one of two Black students at her high school. She’s been prepping for the in-person audition behind her parents’ backs.

Langston lost himself in stardom and his Legendary persona, so it’s refreshing and healing to be home with his best friend—who knows and appreciates the real him. It allows him to be himself once again and let down his guard. Plus, he needs time away from the spotlight for personal reasons.

Dylan and Langston reconnect and relearn each other with the differences that time and maturity have made to their personalities. Dylan has become less fun and silly and doesn’t take time to enjoy life, while Langston is all about living and freedom of self-expression. Their personalities balance one another, and Dylan and Langston give each other a safe space to be themselves without having to pretend or use facades. During his short stay, Dylan learns to relax and have fun again, and Langston exposes her to new music, which can only help her with her audition. Langston learns to show more restraint and responsibility and how to make sacrifices for the people he loves.

Davis nicely explores Dylan’s relationships with her family members (her parents, aunt, and three siblings) and friends in the novel, which reveals and furthers Dylan’s development.
I love Dylan’s relationship and interactions with her Japanese BFF, Kiyoshi, who tries to keep her from spending all her time practicing and studying. Dylan and her best friend talk about race openly and honestly. I love that she has that.

Sweet, funny, emotional, angsty, and introspective, Somebody That I Used to Know is a beautifully written and entrancing YA/ teen romance read/listen exploring themes of self-discovery, self-identity, racial identity, adoption, music, friendship, falling in love, and friends-to-lovers.

Advanced review copy provided by Skyscape via Netgalley for review.

A nice YA romance!

It’s been a little while since I last read one of these but this book reminded me why I enjoy them so much.

We read about Dylan, a violinist hoping to get accepted to Juilliard however that is the only school she applied to. All she wants to do is practice for her audition in peace in the months leading up to it, but her plans get upended when her ex best friend, and teen star, Legendary, is coming to stay at her place for short while. What ensues is a number of small adventures that help Dylan step out of her comfort zone as sparks fly.

Dylan and Legend, the two main characters, are a cute couple!
Both struggling with their own problems, they choose to open up to another and find comfort in the other person.
Their flaws made them out to be much more relatable characters which was great to read about

What I really liked reading about was Dylan’s interactions with her friends and her whimsical family. All characters are so unique and interesting to read about.

My only negatives are that I was not super invested in the plot and did not have a care as to what would happen next.
The other point is that I do think this novel is targeted for readers on the younger side of the YA age range scale and was definitely something I had to keep in mind as I kept reading.

While the book had many positive components, overall I felt pretty “meh” about it, especially considering my 2 points stated above.

I still think it made for an entertaining read and would recommend it to anyone looking for a music infused, YA romance that touches on lot of important coming of age topics

This was a cute book about a hard working musician and her rekindled friendship with a former best friend. Living completely different lives for the last 5 or so years, one a high school student and the other an international superstar, what happens when hurt feelings turn into romantic ones. A fun read.

Love this YA novel! The characters were very relatable. Especially Dylan who has dreams of going to Julliard something we both share. Legend could be any guy that I crushed on high school. This story was so cute I wish I could read it for the first time agai

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

'Somebody that I used to know' is refreshing, heartfelt with humor of 2 people who used to be friends seeing each other after 6 years.

This is a bittersweet piece that completely engrossed me. Time and time again I would fnd myself reaching for my kindle to continue reading. It was impossible to put down.

Some of my favorite parts are music references (like 'All falls down' by Kanye) and many tv show references. Of course with the trolling shade Legendary and Dylan threw at one another lol.

DNF @ 50%. Thanks NetGalley

It started off good with an old “flame” coming back, ignoring her, and then ending up talking and rehashing some stuff but the storyline was flat for me. I started to lose interest.

2.5/5 stars.

I liked Dylan, but I just wasn't into the story nor the writing. I just wasn't as drawn in as I'd hope I'd be.

I just recently got into YA and this was another great YA book. This book will give you every emotion you can experience but that is a good thing. I like when I can get angry and then the next thing you know your all smiles. This was a first read by Dana Davis for me and I will be reading more books by her. I will be recommending this to my friends for their next read!

Thanks NetGalley and Skyscape for allowing me to read this ARC in advanced.

Somebody That I Used to Know by Dana L. Davis is a perfect execution of my favorite romance trope, Friends to Lovers! Dana L. Davis wrote these characters beautifully and made me fall in love with both of them as their estranged friendship grew into a complex and wonderful relationship. Dylan is such a confident and talented young woman and watching her come in to her own with her music and plans for the future was very satisfying. I loved her group of nerdy friends and how supportive her friends and family were of her dreams. Legendary was a great character with such a big heart. He seemed wiser than his age and was always rooting for Dylan and thinking about her, even when she didn't realize it. He is such a cool character because his fame and talent doesn't take away from his down to earth personality and how much he tries to take care of the people that he loves. I raced through this book and finished it in one day because it pulled me in and made me root for the characters individually and as a couple. If you're looking for an inspiring, fun YA romance with a musical twist, this book is perfect for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyscape for the eARC! This review will contain some spoilers.

When I saw Dana L. Davis had written a new book, I was super excited. I read Roman and Jewel earlier this year and I knew that a new novel from the same author would be a great read. I was right, and I ended up enjoying Somebody That I Used to Know even more than Roman and Jewel. This book was always going to get a high rating, and I ended up giving it five stars.

Dylan was great as a main character. I spent the entire book wanting her to succeed so much that I started getting mad at any characters that hurt her. I was rooting for her the entire time. Dylan going from trying to fit in with her adoptive white family by changing her hair and eye colour to learning how to style her natural hair and wearing clear contacts again was really nice. Seeing her learn to love herself and her appearance, find her place in the world, and realise the impact she had on other people was so heart-warming. I think the inclusion of a younger Black girl that Dylan saw was influenced by her was so important for her character and her arc, and I’m glad that Dana L. Davis added the mentor plotline.

I was also really happy that Dylan set boundaries with Legendary. She considered everything that would come with a relationship with him, the problems that they had already faced, and made the decision that was best for her.

Something that I really like in books is when a character takes a break from something they’ve been dedicating most of their time to, and still be just as good as they were before when they return to it. In this case, Dylan takes a break from playing the violin in the lead-up to her Julliard audition and spends a long time worrying if she’ll lose her skills. Fortunately, Dylan is as good at the violin as everyone tells her, even if she doubts herself.

Despite a couple of references to Jeffree Star and Elon Musk that didn’t age super well, none of the pop culture references really got on my nerves like other books. There is also a Zoolander reference that managed to be up to date, even though the book would have been written last year or earlier, which is impressive.

I don’t have a lot more to say about this book because I don’t want to spoil too much, and I think it’s a book that people should experience for themselves. This book is definitely one I will be rereading, and it’s earned it’s place on my list of comfort books. Now that it’s out, I’ll be recommending it a bunch because I adore this book.

Additionally, if Abigail was a real person, it would be on sight. What do you mean ‘racism’? You’re white and not as good at violin as you think it is, get a grip. That’s all I have to say about her, she got on every single one of my nerves.

All in all, this book is amazing. I read most of it in one day and had a great time watching Dylan grow as a character, become more confident in her violin talents, and decide what she wants from her relationships with the people around her. If you’re looking for a YA contemporary novel that talks about expectations about yourself and others, appearance and fitting in, and the pressure to achieve at a high level like Julliard, Somebody That I Used to Know is the book for you.

Dylan Woods last saw her best friend Langston years ago.
He moved to LA and ghosted her and now 5 years later Langston is the biggest star in the world.
After making some bad decisions Langston is back in the town he used to call home, living with his old best friends family.
This was an ok read. It had some cute moments and I loved the trope childhood friends to lovers.
The downside was I didn't feel the chemistry between Dylan and Langston.
Dylan is such an intelligent and talented young lady and I felt she deserved a better boyfriend than Langston.

Somebody That I Used to Know is a wonderful story about realizing that while people change, who they are doesn’t.

I love books about musicians, especially violin players, so this was an easy request. Dylan and Legend are the newest addition to my favourite characters list, and their romance is absolutely amazing. There are so many things that I highlighted that I can’t even begin to share, but all you need to know is that I loved everything about this book, and I can’t wait to see what the author writes next.

Thank you to NetGalley, Skyscape Publishing, and the author for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Special thanks to the author, publisher, and netgalley for my advanced readers copy.

I looooooved everything about this book!!! Who doesn’t love a story about friends finally confessing their love for each other. This was like a modern day Cinderella story centered around music and a rekindled friendship.

I don’t even know where to begin. The character development was great I loved them all. Aunt Edith was funny, her foster parents were very supportive. Her friends were awesome and very diverse. Dylan and Legend were my favorite of course. Both now from different worlds with him being a famous R&B artist and her just a normal hometown girl. This wasn’t your typical YA love story. Everything about their relationship and interactions were so authentic.

Legend’s presence took Dylan out of this safe shell she created for herself. But she also showed him what it was like to really enjoy the simpler things in life.

Favorite Quote: “Never settle for less than what you deserve.”

Funny Moment: pg.169 Dylan’s family attending a black church for the first time.

The epilogue was the perfect ending to such a magical love story. It had me all emotional. Their fairytale moment was just so cuuuuute and sweet.

I recommend this book and I’m 100% sure you won’t regret reading it either. Look at me becoming a YA fan though. I definitely plan on reading more by this author.

This book was light and refreshing! Davis reintroduced the two main characters without things feeling forced or rushed. This novel highlighted the importance of having people that will make you feel grounded and as if you are “home”. Langston challenges Dylan by encouraging her to actually live the life she wants with the people she would like to have in her life. Dylan extends the gift of forgiveness to Langston allowing him to seek truth his life and career. A love story for any teen.

First, the cover of this book is stunning. When I first saw it, my bookish spidey senses tingled and I knew I wanted to read it. This was a great read that was a balance of light and heavy. Its a story of second chances in reconnection, friendship and romance. I had moments where I laughed, where my eyes got a little watery and where I cheered. I’m also a sucker for two Black kids falling in friendship and love because it’s truly a beautiful thing (I still don’t think we have nearly enough of those stories right now). I flew through this book and I wouldn’t be surprised if you do too when you read!

Huge shoutout to both NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for sending me an e-arc as well as a physical copy of this book!

This book played on a lot of my (current) faves. Childhood friends to lovers. Celebrity romances. Forced proximity (we LOVE forced proximity right?). Lucky for me, all of these tropes went together seamlessly in a way that I wouldn't have expected. It had a lot of warm and fuzzy moments if you will and it was enjoyable to read. Definitely would recommend this to other YA readers for sure!

Dana L. Davis is a genius when it comes to making her readers feel emotions. I went through intense anger and frustration, intense sympathy and sadness, and intense periods of happiness and positivity for the characters. The book was addictive and I couldn't put it down.

When I said I wanted a funny book with a realistic main character, great side characters, and a solid romance, this book was the perfect fit. Thank you so much to Dana L. Davis and to Skyscape for the eARC! It really made my week.

I liked the message in this book and I loved the main character. Her best friend was also fantastic. I loved all the scenes and the humour embedded within the book and I really hope more people are encouraged to pick this up because it was a fantastic read! I can't wait to check out more by Dana L. Devis, especially Roman and Jewel (which has been on my tbr for ages!!).

This book had everything I wanted. The only reason it wasn't a 5 star was because I got so mad at Langston so I couldn't quite forgive him at the end.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a great time with relatable characters and fantastic humour with hilarious side characters.