Friendship Breakups Stink and We Should Talk About Them More, a guest post by Jodi Meadows

One of the most difficult relationship milestones in our lives is the breakup. Not the romantic breakup, though those can be incredibly painful.
No, I mean the friendship breakup.
Do we talk about these enough? I don’t know. I feel like I don’t hear about them a lot, but maybe that’s because they’re so miserable. But any time I bring up friendship breakups, people always have a story to tell. Those relationships — and their endings — clearly leave scars.
Of course they do. Your (now ex-) best friend knows you so deeply, sometimes better than a romantic partner. You shared dreams and experiences. You went through that one time together.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
They’re supposed to be ride-or-die. They’re supposed to last forever.
But sometimes . . . they’re not.
I didn’t set out to write a book about a friendship breakup. In fact, I started writing this book for the silliest reason possible: wrong-number text messages.
I get a lot of them, and years ago I was chatting about them with a longtime reader, who insisted I should write a book about them. But I laughed and reminded her that I write fantasy books, not contemporary. Still, if I ever lost my mind and decided to write one, it would be titled Bye Forever, I Guess, in honor of one of my favorite wrong-number texts.
Fast forward some time later, I got a text that sparked something: a love note meant for someone else.
That was when my brain did the thing: it made a story about a girl who gets a lot of wrong-wrong number texts, starts a social media channel about it (with the protection and support of her grandmother), and eventually, she gets a love note . . . for someone with the same first name as her ex-best friend. (Conflict!)
You can see where this is going.

In the book, Ingrid freaks out, of course. But then she realizes it’s statistically improbable that this sweet love note is actually for her ex-friend, so she develops a new friendship with this person, an anonymous online one. They text and play their favorite video game together, but they don’t who the other one is in real life.
Ingrid and Traveler — that’s his video game name — become fast friends. He also likes to read and nerd out about subjects he’s interested in. For Ingrid, it’s knitting and other yarn-related hobbies. (She has a spinning wheel like one of mine!) For Traveler, it’s astronomy. (Also something I love on a soul-deep level.)
Between Traveler and Lorren — Ingrid’s other video game friend, who lives in another state — Ingrid has a solid support system of kids who love her and help her to trust again.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get over her ex! Especially when Ingrid starts to suspect that Traveler might be a cute boy at her school, and his sweet love note might have been meant for the person who hurt her the most.

Like most people reading this, I’ve gone through friendship breakups. They’re really stinkin’ hard. Even as an adult, it’s devastating to lose someone you cared about so much. Even if you’re the one who’s doing the leaving. All that shared history. The good times. The secrets.
For someone Ingrid’s age — thirteen — it’s usually the first time something like this happens, which makes it all the more emotional and confusing.
While I haven’t read every book out there (I still have time to try!), I feel like we see a lot of books about gaining friends, and not as many about saying goodbye to the toxic ones. So that’s one of the things I wanted to explore in Bye Forever, I Guess — the emotional catastrophe of letting go of friend you’ve had your whole life who isn’t actually healthy for you.
But I also wanted to show the growth of good relationships, like Ingrid has with Lorren at the beginning of the book, and like she develops with Traveler.
In that way, Bye Forever, I Guess is about both losing and gaining friends. Learning to trust again. Accepting that people love you even if you’re awkward and say the wrong things sometimes.
I want readers to see that there is, in fact, a future filled with the love and support of best friends who get you.
Meet the author

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Jodi Meadows wants to be a ferret when she grows up and she has no self-control when it comes to yarn, ink, or outer space. Still, she manages to write books. She is the author of the INCARNATE Trilogy, the ORPHAN QUEEN Duology, the FALLEN ISLES Trilogy (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen), and the NIGHTRENDER duology, and BYE FOREVER, I GUESS (Holiday House). She is also a coauthor of New York Times bestsellers MY LADY JANE, MY PLAIN JANE, and other books in the Lady Janies series (HarperTeen). She lives in rural Virginia. Visit her at www.jodimeadows.com
Website: www.jodimeadows.com
Instagram: @unicornwarlord
Newsletter: https://jodimeadows.substack.com
About Bye Forever, I Guess
Can a guarded gamer girl lower her shield for a new friend… or more-than-friend?
“EARNEST AND LAUGH-OUT-LOUD… PITCH PERFECT.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Thirteen-year-old Ingrid’s been living a double life. At school, she’s the Girl With Dead Parents, her popular friend Rachel’s charity case. Online, things are different: she crushes it in her favorite MMORPG, geeks out in her favorite fantasy fandom, and runs a popular social media account. If only real life were that easy.
But when Ingrid finally stands up to Rachel and “starts drama,” it suddenly feels like she has no life at all . . . and nowhere to sit at lunch.
Until she gets a supersweet wrong-number text from a mystery boy at her school, and everything starts to go right. Spending time together playing Ancient Tomes Online as “Stitches” and “Traveler” makes her feel like she’s really connecting with someone. But when she begins to suspect that Traveler may be a popular classmate who is WAY above her in the cool-kid food chain—and whose original text was actually intended for Rachel—she faces a difficult choice. Can they be friends IRL? She wants to open up, but getting close to people has hurt her before.
Is making real friends only fantasy after all?
Bye Forever, I Guess is the fresh, funny, and deeply sweet middle-grade debut of New York Times bestselling author Jodi Meadows (MY LADY JANE). Speaking to the messiness of middle-school friendships (and first loves), this is a warm, witty, enormously entertaining book—and a love letter to geek culture, gaming, and the healing power of fantasy.
ISBN-13: 9780823456383
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 10/22/2024
Age Range: 10 – 14 Years
Filed under: Guest Post

About Amanda MacGregor
Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on BlueSky at @amandamacgregor.bsky.social.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
How to Do Just About Everything in 2025
Good Golden Sun: A Conversation with Brendan Wenzel
MegaGhost Vol. 1 | Review
Goodbye for now
When Book Bans are a Form of Discrimination, What is the Path to Justice?
ADVERTISEMENT