“When You Were Everything” by Ashley Woodfolk (2024)

A Book Review

I think we have all lost a friendship in our lives. It’s an ache that is so different from any other loss — even a breakup or a death. They’re all hard, but they hit differently. In young adult novels, readers often see the total opposite: people becoming friends, falling in love, or just people coming together in general.

When You Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk is not a story about falling in love, but about something important, and perhaps something not seen as much in young adult literature: the loss of friendship.

In alternating narratives of present and past, or “then” and “now”, Woodfolk charts the friendship, the demise, and the aftermath of Cleo and Layla. Cleo and Layla were best friends, but after their friendship “implodes”, Cleo wants to create a new life without Layla, and more importantly, she wants new memories that don’t include Layla.

I really appreciate how this book breaks a linear timeline, as it is unclear when exactly “then” and “now” is actually referring. In this fresh take on a standard timeline, readers slowly get to know Cleo and Layla’s friendship, and their new friendships as they create new memories.

There’s just one catch: Cleo is assigned to be Layla’s tutor. The scenes between Cleo and Layla in the “now” chapters are so realistic and sometimes painful (or painfully, perfectly awkward). These two girls had love for one another, or maybe even continue to have some love one another, but time and time again readers watch any chance of their friendship being mended slowly falling apart.

Spoilers for the book start here!

Although this book is about a friendship imploding, it’s also about friendships blossoming. When Cleo and Layla have a fight during their tutoring session, Cleo’s new friend, Sydney, shows up at her call. Not only does Sydney show up for her, she makes Cleo face the painful truth:

“You. Were. Right. Let’s erase her. Eradicate her from your life as much as humanly possible…you have to get over her” (168).

Sydney shouts a monologue from William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well in the middle of a cold, wintery park, creating a new memory for the park so Cleo is not overrun with memories of Layla. At this point, she thinks that maybe everything will be alright, but it’s not.

Cleo’s parents announce that they are getting a divorce. As her life at home is falling apart, so is her life at school.

Layla’s new mean friends, including perfect-popular girls, Sloane and Sage, insult Cleo in the hallway, right when Cleo’s pain of her parents’ divorce is fresh.

“It looks like someone threw up in her face” (248).

“Do your parents always wear black too? You know, because they’re mourning your birth?” (248)

“And her hair,” Sage said, and I knew what came next would sting, especially because Sage was black too. She knew what it was like to live with black hair… “It’s so nappy and gross-looking. Say it with me, Chloe: Shampoo. Condition. Rinse. Repeat” (249).

Cleo looks up, and sees Layla staring back at her, not stopping her new friends from insulting her once best friend.

Out of anger, Cleo types out a secret of Sloane’s she had learned through Layla: Sloane’s dad walked in on her and her boyfriend having sex. Her boyfriend was then convicted of statutory rape, and Sloane became humiliated at her old school. Cleo calls Sloane a “slu*tty fifteen-year-old” and “a f*cking nobody” in this email (256).

Cleo has some interesting reflection on this:

“The thing is, there wasn’t anything inherently bad in any of it — a girl falling in love with a boy; a girl being victimized until she broke; a girl who was sick and who needed too start over. But Sloane would never want to be seen as weak, and I knew she thought these experiences made her look like she was” (256–257).

As the reader is probably begging Cleo to stop, she sends the email to the entire school.

Now, Sloane wants revenge.

Layla and Sloane, with the help of their new friends, spread a rumor that Cleo’s dad, a teacher at her school, is having an affair. This rumor then turns into a rumor that her dad had an affair with a student. Cleo’s dad moves out, admitting he did cheat on Cleo’s mom with Cleo’s favorite teacher, and at this point, it looks like Cleo is completely breaking.

One thing I truly enjoyed about this book was how raw and real it is. The characters are imperfect: they make mistakes, they betray one another, and they do eventually forgive one another, but it isn’t back to perfect upon forgiveness.

I also appreciated how romance took the backseat. There is a budding romance, but what is more important to the story is Cleo and her new, and old, friends. Her new friend, Sydney, even comments on this.

“Why does no one take me seriously?…Is it because I have perfectly conditioned hair and I’m the president of the fashion club? Is it because people assume girls who like makeup and cute clothes are doing it for the male gaze, so it’s strange that I don’t always want dudes around?” (155).

At this moment, I knew Sydney was my favorite character, with her charm, a sprinkle of humor, but also her ability to take things seriously.

At the end of the novel, Cleo goes up to an open mic and reads a beautiful monologue about her friendship with Layla, while Layla is watching. She explains how Layla had sung her favorite song, a song Cleo and her late grandmother loved.

“Some people say would say that this was coincidence, that I met this girl so soon after I’d lost Gigi while our favorite song was playing, and that her voice made me feel like everything would be all right before I even knew her name. But I’m a believer in signs.” (383)

Afterwards, Layla steps up to the mic.

“While I know that Layla is lost to me, maybe this is her goodbye to our friendship the same way my story was mine. She sings the first line of my favorite song — the song that was playing the day we met — beautifully. She watched me and no one else.” (385)

Although the book ends there, there is something beautiful about the possibility. Layla and Cleo choose to let both their relationship, and their pain go, so they can finally be untethered from one another and explore the world by themselves.

Ashley Woodfolk knows how to twist the knife when her reader is already feeling pain. She is an expert crafter of stories, but also a crafter of emotions. I felt pain, happiness, sorrow; I even felt nostalgia for a friendship that is completely fictional. That’s the thing, though; Woodfolk makes this story real to the reader.

Maybe Cleo doesn’t need to eradicate her old friend from her new life, but she creates new memories with new friends, as well as with old ones.

When You Were Everything is a story almost everyone can relate to, but told in such an achingly beautiful way that I think only Woodfolk would be able to achieve.