This is probably closer to a 3.5 for me. 
 I typically love these types of stories. Friends who become more than friends yet some circumstance pulls them apart, then other circumstances bring them together again, but can they get back to where they once were? Can even their friendship be salvaged or has too much between them to repair what was broken? 
 The Year We Fell Apart does all of this really well. It was just difficult to read about all the mistakes Harper continued to make. Her downward spiral if you will. I understand that she was going through something and she's only 17 years old, but I just wanted her to wake up and notice the path she was on sooner. The things she needed to change were so apparent to me - the wrong people she was hanging out with and the bad decisions she was making - that I would get irritated when Harper doesn't recognize it too. When she does make a conscious decision to turn things around I liked her a whole lot better, but it takes a lot of work for her. 
 I loved Harper and Declan together. I loved their tentative steps towards friendship again and seeing them being ok around one another. I wanted more time with Declan and Harper's more positive influence friends: Cory, Mackenzie, and Gwen. There were a lot of great secondary characters. But like I said before, the "bad guys" were so obvious in their manipulations that I wanted Harper to see it sooner too. 
 Emily Martin did a great job of not making anything seem too predisposed to happen. A lot of things are left up in the air until the end. Will they, or won't they? 
 I think this is a very worthy debut novel. I look forward to reading more from Emily Martin in the future. 
 *Copy provided by publishers in exchange for an honest review.