Starred Review This blistering novel in verse follows two 16-year-old girls, both Black and queer, as they share a final, combustible day together following two-and-a-half years of friendship that bled into a messy, passionate, undefinable romance. Sections of the present are intercut with flashback vignettes, gradually assembling a collage of the intimate history that informs the girls' impetuous last outing. And while there are certainly dramatic events e day is bookended by (relatively innocent) arson odfolk doesn't rely on shocking twists or gimmickry to propel readers, instead immersing them in the raw emotions of the characters, heightened by the intensity of first love, with all its promise and problems. The verse, written in direct address from a first-person perspective, is tight and energetic, effective and deeply affecting. There's a kind of minimalism to the story's tight focus aracter names are omitted; backstory is limited to this couple's relationship d many of the novel's elements, such as the setting and events, double as metaphor, making for an elegant overall construction that causes the novel (which, yes, is in verse) to feel like a poem itself. This is no genre romance, and a happily ever after is not the goal. Rather, this book is an uncommon exploration of girlhood and its messier relationships: the ones that, though they go out, burn bright and big and leave an indelible mark.

Friendship evolves into a fiery, complex first love for two teen girls.This nonlinear novel in verse begins at the end, as a queer Black couple stand on opposite sides of a bridge, their relationship crumbling. The first and last poems-both titled "After the Fire"-are the only times the story is told from the point of view of the partner, a girl only ever referred to as "you." The unnamed narrator begins by alternating between the history of their tumultuous relationship and the day things begin to unravel, when the pair set fire to a dumpster in their high school's parking lot. In addition to exploring queerness-the narrator is attracted to other girls, her partner is bisexual-Woodfolk also writes about how girls, especially Black girls, learn that what other people think about how they look can put them in danger. The two met at a coffee shop and soon became friends, partners in trouble, and each other's everything. Through the economical and expressive poems, readers are pulled into the narrator's deep, shifting emotions as her feelings for her friend change. The rich language describing the way the two love each other is magnificent: "we added up to a little too much. // You loved me more than I knew. / I loved you more than you could take." Fire is a symbol throughout, and the final flames aptly represent the passion and volatility of this relationship.A beautiful, emotionally charged novel. (Verse novel. 14-18)

Friendship evolves into a fiery, complex first love for two teen girls.This nonlinear novel in verse begins at the end, as a queer Black couple stand on opposite sides of a bridge, their relationship crumbling. The first and last poems-both titled "After the Fire"-are the only times the story is told from the point of view of the partner, a girl only ever referred to as "you." The unnamed narrator begins by alternating between the history of their tumultuous relationship and the day things begin to unravel, when the pair set fire to a dumpster in their high school's parking lot. In addition to exploring queerness-the narrator is attracted to other girls, her partner is bisexual-Woodfolk also writes about how girls, especially Black girls, learn that what other people think about how they look can put them in danger. The two met at a coffee shop and soon became friends, partners in trouble, and each other's everything. Through the economical and expressive poems, readers are pulled into the narrator's deep, shifting emotions as her feelings for her friend change. The rich language describing the way the two love each other is magnificent: "we added up to a little too much. // You loved me more than I knew. / I loved you more than you could take." Fire is a symbol throughout, and the final flames aptly represent the passion and volatility of this relationship.A beautiful, emotionally charged novel. (Verse novel. 14-18)

In a tautly written, fast-moving novel in verse that captures the unbalanced experience of an all-consuming love, two unnamed queer Black teen girls move rapidly from strangerhood into a protective best friendship before becoming dysfunctional lovers and mutually destructive partners in crime. Beginning with the couple-s parting after their fateful decision to set fire to the dumpster behind their high school, the story switches nonlinearly between their dissonant perspectives. One is the starry-eyed, compulsively dishonest daughter of an attentive family; the other an avoidant latchkey kid, for whom -fire was always a joke.- Exploring themes of loyalty, infatuation, and the value of self-love over romance, Woodfolk (When You Were Everything) peppers this fraught, almost suffocating love story with eye-catching lines that signpost the teens- deepening codependency from their bond-s initial spark (-And our soft brown hands collided/ like stars-) through its fiery conclusion (-You loved me more than I knew./ I loved you more than you could take-). Ages 12-up. Agent: Beth Phelan, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Apr.)