While We’re Young by K.L Walther is a young adult fiction and romance book that shifts between the perspectives of four teenagers in their senior year of high school. The book was published in March of 2025, and has a 3.55 star rating on Goodreads. The author of this book, K.L Walther, has written a number of other popular books such as The Summer of Broken Rules, What Happens After Midnight, Maybe Meant to Be, and others. VPM’s Fiction Book Club read The Summer of Broken Rules back in November of 2023 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Walther has a couple new books coming out later this year – The Summer of Second Chances coming out in May and We’re a Bad Idea, Right? coming out in March.

In While We’re Young, Walther takes inspiration from the classic movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” by having the characters decide to have their own senior skip day, fake being sick, and drive around cars they aren’t supposed to. One of the main characters, Grace, was the one to come up with the whole idea in an attempt to get her friend group back together. Her friends Isa and Everett dated in middle school but broke up freshman year, causing a rift in the friend group. This skip day is Grace trying to get everyone to get along again before they all go off to college. However, she forgot one crucial part of the friend group. Grace has a brother named James who was left out of this skip day, leaving him at school wondering why everyone is missing. Another big point is that her friend has been spending time with James without telling Grace, and needs to tell her today before she loses what she has with him.

This book is full of hilarious scenes where the characters barely get away with skipping and many heartwarming moments. It truly showcases the importance and power of friendship. The book really shows how hard changes in friend groups can be, especially when it involves choosing sides. Throughout the entire book the reader is rooting for each character to get what they want and for everyone to get along. The relationships in the book are also great representations of the complications of dating in high school, “girl code”, and liking your best friend’s brother. The book also showcases hardships with accepting change, especially at such a pivotal time in a young person’s life, like graduating high school and moving to college. The reader gets to see examples of the family pressure to get into a certain college, picking what to major in, and dealing with what your parents will change while you’re off at college (like selling your childhood house).

I really enjoyed this book and rated it 4.5/5 stars. All of the funny moments made me laugh and grin, all the aspects of their life in high school were relatable, and the sweet romantic moments made me really feel what the characters were feeling. I had fun reading the book and could barely put it down. I can’t wait to read more books by K.L. Walther.