Overview
Moving between the late 1990s and 2025, When We Were Everything is a multi-perspective literary novel that follows best friends Jelly, Maeve, and Ella as they navigate adolescence, identity, and the fragile bonds of first love. In 1996, the trio discovers a thrift store game called Mystic Heart that instructs them to "Find Prairie"—a message that draws them into a new social circle of skater punks, loud concerts, and charged intimacy. As they hang out with this new crowd, Ella falls for Prairie, Maeve struggles with financial stress and her boyfriend, while the outgoing Jelly fights to stop feeling like a background character in her own life. However, a massive post-graduation betrayal involving Jelly and Maeve's boyfriend shatters the group's trust, leading to years of silence as Jelly flees to college to reinvent herself while Maeve and Ella attempt to maintain their bond into adulthood. By 2025, with their 25th high school reunion approaching, a strange spiritual experience forces a reflective Jelly to stop running from her past. Reunited at last, the former friends finally rehash old secrets and confront the mess they left behind, learning how to honor their history while finally figuring out who they are today.
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