Amy Spalding, "WE USED TO BE FRIENDS"

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.

Amy Spalding delicately explores the breakup of childhood best friends. Told in dual timelines—half of the chapters moving forward in time and half moving backward—We Used to Be Friends is funny, honest and full of heart.