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You can't rewrite the past, but you can always choose to start again. It’s been twenty-seven days since Cleo and Layla’s friendship imploded. Nearly a month since Cleo realized they’ll never be besties again. Now, Cleo wants to erase every memory, good or bad, that tethers her to her ex–best friend. But pretending Layla doesn’t exist isn’t as easy as Cleo hoped, especially after she’s assigned to be Layla’s tutor. Despite budding new friendships with other classmates—and a raging crush on a gorgeous boy named Dom—Cleo’s turbulent past with Layla comes back to haunt them both. Alternating between time lines of Then and Now, When You Were Everything blends past and present into an emotional story about the beauty of self-forgiveness, the promise of new beginnings, and the courage it takes to remain open to love.
Publication Year: 2020
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0It seems like me and YA are a hit and a miss this year. It was a pretty good book but nothing great. The good:
I enjoyed seeing a story about self forgiveness, lost friendship and earning new friends. For the most part I liked the journey of Layla and Cleo and how it was told. I liked Willa and Sydney and how they became her people. The romance between Dom and Cleo was nice. I liked that you could see there was a lot of love and care for Cleo and Layla before things fell apart. I also liked having a secondary character with a stutter it was good representation of that. I liked a broken friendship and can t be repaired. A story about self forgiveness, finding new friends and how people can hurt you and you can hurt people. I liked Cleo’s journey of not putting people on a pedestal and finding new relationships and figuring out that she was wrong but she can be a better friend.
The not so good:
This started off pretty good and then descended. It wasn’t horrible I just feel like it lost itself a little mid way. It has a interesting concept that I feel like where it fell apart was when Cleo did things that were way more unforgivable with little consequence. It started to feel like revenge that she didn’t feel bad about.
I also didn’t love the plot with her dad it felt unnecessary and like it was supposed to teach a lesson but it just hurt people in a different way. I just felt like in the end I wish things were handled better in between but the ending was sweet and I do think it was pretty good. It was just ok. Ok isn’t bad it just wasn’t great
I understood the friendship falling apart and how codependent it was to begin with but I wish it had burned a different way because I would rather it be they were both wrong but they made up for it but aren’t friends anymore vs they did unforgivable things. It just felt like a bit much. That said It was a very nice message and it was relatable it was just an ok read. 3/5= 6/10
02023 reads: 267/350
2023 tbr: 59/100
this follows the aftermath of a friendship breakup between cleo and layla. cleo is determined to replace memories with layla, but it’s not as easy as she thought.
as someone who has been through so many friendship breakups (though not as drastic as cleo and layla’s, luckily), this was just the book i needed. i liked how we got to see alternating timelines from “then” and “now.” this helped show how they fell out in a more engaging manner than if it had been strictly told through the present timeline. i also appreciated the stuttering rep with layla. it felt very realistic and the author seemed to do research as smooth speech, not stuttering while singing or using an accent, etc. were mentioned.
i highly recommend this book and i can’t wait to read more from this author.
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