A review by papertraildiary
We Used To Be Friends by Amy Spalding

2.0

In We Used to be Friends by Amy Spalding, teen girls James and Kat experience the heartbreak of the best friend breakup. I think I would have liked the book more if it was told in a linear fashion - instead it is a dual-voice of James's story working backwards starting from when she leaves for college, and Kat's story moving forwards. I found it increasingly confusing, especially reading it as an ebook rather than print (in which I could at least flip back and forth through when I got mixed up). I think the heartbreak would've hit a lot harder if they were in tandem, as well. While James is more of a stoic character who doesn't want to tell her best friend about the tough stuff going on in her life, Kat is the one who can't stop talking about her own life and doesn't often stop to hear anyone else anyway. I've known girls like both James and Kat so I found their portrayals to be achingly real, I just still think the gut punch would've been harder if we experienced their slow break-up at the same time as them. They really go through years of inching through their falling-apart friendship as Kat meets a girlfriend who James feels replaces her, and James pulls farther and farther away. I think the forwards/backwards concept was interesting and an attempt at making a conventional writing style different, but it didn't land for me.