Hi friends, happy Thursday – I hope everyone is doing well. Today I’m going to be posting my review of Ashley Woodfolk’s novel When You Were My Everything.

When You Were Everything by: Ashley Woodfolk: Cleo and Layla were the best of friends until they weren’t. A new school year looms ahead and Layla is ready to try new things. When she starts to hang out with the “Chorus Girls” Cleo can start to feel her pull away. Slowly as the months go by, Cleo can feel her whole world caving in; but with the help of some new friends she is able to forgive and let people in again. There were so many life lessons in this novel; the main one realizing that friends may not always stay as close as you want them to and understanding the expectations that come with being in a friendship, not everyone has the same expectations, which is a hard lesson to learn, but an important one. Woodfolk really spoke to the reader and wrote from the heart. This story really broke down friendships and really showed what it means to be a true friend. Even though this novel was filled with heartbreak, there was also a lot of love and new beginnings that were such a joy to read. Told from two different time periods; the end of the school year and the beginning of it, the reader is taken back and forth through time to find out what happened to the friendship. It made for some good storytelling and let the reader understand the characters better. The characters were really well developed and created. The more the reader got to know them, the more there was to love. Even the characters who the reader hated were created with so much passion that they felt real and believable. As well, the secondary characters were richly developed and they really rounded out the story. Woodfolk’s writing was so enjoyable to read; there was something so endearing about the way she wove Shakespeare quotes throughout the novel and made them relatable to what her characters were going through. Reading about characters who love to read also just sparked the joy of reading in the reader’s heart. This was a completely honest and true novel that tugs at the heart.