WHEN FRIENDS ARE VILLAINS (HOLLY SCHINDLER)

I was a big Judy Blume fan growing up. Big. Huge. To a great extent, THE PAIN AND THE GREAT ONE was the book that made me a reader. But I think JUST AS LONG AS WE'RE TOGETHER may have made the biggest impact.

This is the cover I had. I owned my copy until it disintegrated.

Basically, it's about losing your best friend to someone else. At least, that's how I remember it. I was going through something similar at the time, and the book hurt and it comforted me all at the same time.

We've talked a lot about making villains real this month. I think the most painful, cruelest villains--the villains who can do the most damage--are the people your main character loves. 

The friend who does you wrong (or dumps you or ghosts you, etc.) is exactly the character who can rip your protagonist in two. It's a character your protagonist would know thoroughly--and would never depict as some two-dimensional bad guy. It's also the last person on earth the protagonist wants to think of as a villain. 

But isn't that just like real life? How many of your own personal villains were once your favorite people on the planet?