“There are breakup tunes and lovesick ballads and celebrating-that-he-was-gone anthems. It was easy to believe that romance was the only heartache out there.”
Oh, friendships. So fulfilling, so meaningful…so underestimated. There is no doubt that there is a worrying lack of books focused on friendships, even though they are some of the most important forms of interpersonal connection. Friendships are, most of the time, taken for granted: you don’t have to nourish or pay attention to and they are definitely something that can’t ever harm you. Why is no one talking about how a friend breakup can hurt as much (if not more) than a romantic one? Why is no one addressing the pain of growing out of long-lasting friendships?
Told through the alternating points of view of James and Kat, the novel follows the downfall of these two childhood friends during the last year of high school. In We Used to Be Friends, Amy Spalding explores, first and foremost, one of the boiling points in relationships: lack of communication. While this is a very common thing in every bond, Spalding also offers some insight on why this usually happens the most in friendships. Insecurities, feeling left behind, and overlooked or an imbalance of commitment and expectations are some of the topics and main behavioural elements that influence James and Kat’s breakup.
Spalding also explores the way in which other relationships affect friendships. Friendships do not happen in isolated environments. Family ties, romantic partners, and other friendships affect the way in which we understand relationships and our connections with other people. They can make us undervalue other types of relationships, they make us be wary of people hurting our feelings before they even do so, and they even make us overlook the love others put into our friendships. Undoubtedly, We Used to Be Friends is a great insightful and thorough dive into friendships and a wake-up call that should not be underestimated.
In terms of the characters, the two protagonists have polar opposite personalities. Where James is calm and reserved, Kat is extremely outgoing and bubbly. In addition, Kat is quite popular among their high school peers, while James is not. As happens in real life, when their relationship begins to wear down, their differences become an obstacle in their relationship: James begins to resent Kat for barely being there for her once she gets a new girlfriend, while Kat blames James for not telling her anything about her life and struggles once she discovers James’ parents have gotten a divorce. It is quite interesting to see how much each person can relate to either Kat or James, as both girls depict opposing personalities that more often than not rub each other the wrong way. For some readers, James’ emotional walls will pose an extremely annoying trait, while for more reserved people, Kat’s overbearing extroversion will definitely become exhausting. Does that make them unlikable characters? Not necessarily. But they will definitely make it easier for the reader to pick a side in the breakup.
Even if Kat’s and James’ accounts are biased by their personal understanding of the things they go through; through the dual perspective, the readers also get to understand the two sides of the story and form their own judgements on the breakup. However, there is a twist in the narration: James’ account goes backwards in time, while Kat follows a forward succession of events. Unusual and incredibly fascinating, this technique makes the reading process an active task, rather than a passive one. The reader has to work to remember and connect the events so that they can get a full grasp of what happens, combining both James’ and Kat’s sides of the story. Even if quite invigorating, the task does, however, become quite confusing at times, as it is necessary to keep close track of the dates that situate every chapter in the timeline of the narration —between August before senior year and August after senior year— and the turning points in their relationship.
All in all, We Used to Be Friends serves as a great self-exploration experience for the reader. Unlike romantic relationships, everyone has gone through a friend breakup. Everyone has experienced the pain of feeling a friendship irrevocably slipping away. Everyone has experienced the frustration of growing out of people you thought would be a part of your life forever. Whether you were the one to end the friendship or the one being dumped, Amy Spalding will offer you a glimpse of a similar experience through an unbiased lens that will definitely make you think. In the end, both girls have their flaws and both girls hurt as much, showing that it takes two to breakup —or was it to tango?
We Used To Be Friends is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Two best friends grow up—and grow apart—in this innovative contemporary YA novel
Told in dual timelines—half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward—We Used to Be Friends explores the most traumatic breakup of all: that of childhood besties. At the start of their senior year in high school, James (a girl with a boy’s name) and Kat are inseparable, but by graduation, they’re no longer friends. James prepares to head off to college as she reflects on the dissolution of her friendship with Kat while, in alternating chapters, Kat thinks about being newly in love with her first girlfriend and having a future that feels wide open. Over the course of senior year, Kat wants nothing more than James to continue to be her steady rock, as James worries that everything she believes about love and her future is a lie when her high-school sweetheart parents announce they’re getting a divorce. Funny, honest, and full of heart, We Used to Be Friends tells of the pains of growing up and growing apart.
