i volunteer to kiss emily miller every tuesday at 3:30pm in the library bathroom if jesse won’t do it

This is the story of Jesse, a high school girl who cuts her hair with a knife and wears ugly rubber boots, and Emily, the pretty blonde student council officer in the cardigan, who seem to be as different as night and day but are strangely attracted to each other.  At first the characters in this story seemed to me to be falling into one-dimensional stereotypes, and I thought I could see where the story was going.  But I kept reading because of the glowing comments from Laurie Halse Anderson - if she liked it, there had to be more there!  And there was. While there is, obviously, a strong lesbian storyline, it is not just about that.  All readers, regardless of sexual orientation) will find characters who struggle with the same things as they do (insecurities, indecision, fitting in, etc). As one reviewer said, if you believe in any cause and standing up to be counted, you will relate to the characters in this book.  If I had any criticism of this book, it would be that while there is a tolerance for all sorts of people and lifestyles, there is what has become the stereotypical Christian bad guy.  I would have liked to see the tolerance extended to all a bit more even-handedly or have him developed beyond that stereotype.  This young adult title would be better kept for high school audiences rather than middle schoolers due to several steamy encounters that might be a little much for younger students and/or their parents.

I really liked Jesse's and Esther's points of view. Emily was a complete airhead. makes me sad to share a name with her.

To be completely honest, I thought that I wouldn't enjoy this book as much as I did. I ended up falling for the characters, Jesse and Emily, and the dynamic between the two. I was actually rooting for Jesse to win the girl throughout the entire book. The only things I didn't enjoy were 1) the fact that Emily's chapters were significantly shorter than Jesse's and 2) the ending. In my head the ending is sort of completely different. But besides that, I enjoyed the book overall. It's an easy read.

This book really wasn’t anything like I was expecting. I thought it was mostly going to be a love story about Emily coming to terms with who she is. That really wasn’t the case at all. The story revolves around Jesse the most and it’s really about her finding herself, standing up for what she believes in, and just growing up. Emily’s role in the story is a bit smaller and infuriating.

I really loved Jesse. She was very complex and very unique. She didn’t care to be different but her feelings for Emily really made her vulnerable. That made her feel extremely believable to me. Throughout the story Jesse grows. She has to figure out what’s more important to her, her secret relationship with Emily or her beliefs. I had a lot of fun watching her journey and I think we could all stand to be a little more like Jesse.

Emily on the other hand….The book is told from alternating points of view with Jesse in the spotlight more often, but when Emily had her turn I couldn’t help but pity this poor naive girl. She is vice president of student council and very serious about it. She also has a very serious boyfriend, but she meets Jesse once a week for a short make out session. She was very unlikeable, but I think she was supposed to be. That’s just who she was. It was a great way to show the contrast between them. Props to Madeleine George for writing such very different but equally interesting characters.

The Difference Between You and Me isn’t a romance so don’t go into it expecting one. It’s an intelligent story about a girl struggling to figure out who she is in a unique situation. I enjoyed every second of it and I think you will too!

I had some serious problems with this book.

First, Jesse and every other character is a flaming stereotype. It's okay to be butch, or do whatever you want to express your orientation/gender identity/political beliefs- that's chill. It's just that it's THE ENTIRE BOOK. Everyone is a liberal radical who fights the system and listens to NPR and has quirky accessories and causes. That, or they're an objectivist (Wyatt, gay best friend (if they're both gay, does that stereotype count? Is there a lesbian best friend trend? Is that a thing?)) or part of the machine supporting big corporations (Wyatt's father, Emily). It wasn't any *one* stereotype or ridiculous thing that really made me angry when I was reading this... it was all of it heaped together. It got old very fast.

Second, there was such a missed opportunity in the whole Jesse/Emily relationship. It felt like ships passing in the night. My expectations from the cover blurb weren't met at all. I keep being told their making out is "awesome" and "the best thing ever" and "so intense" (drinking game (with water or juice for the under-aged, of course): take a drink every time they use the word "intense" in this book), but there's nothing there. Nothing. I suppose that's the point- their connection is purely physical and they even mention that they don't talk to each other normally and that's why

Spoiler

the relationship ultimately fails

- but it just came off wrong to me.

Third, the way she chose to narrate characters. Emily herself was a disappointment. She's the only almost the only character we hear from first-person and this probably contributed to why I spent the whole book wanting to slap her. She rationalizes and rationalizes and back-stabs and UGGGHHH. We only ever hear from Jesse in third, which worked and was alright, but Jesse's boring. She has little flaws... but her perspective isn't nearly as interesting as the minor characters (like Esther- I really liked her first-person sections), even ones who don't get that much screen time. Jesse came off as the empty stereotype that she is, which is disappointing because she had so many opportunities not to be. She has a mom in remission from cancer, she's in a sort-of-relationship with a closet case (is Emily bi? Lesbian? never resolved, neither possibility even discussed- bi people exist!), she has weird relationships she could explore and people to figure out (Snediker? What is up with you?? Why are you so mean? What caused your about-face? Never resolved.)... she has the ideal set-up for a character and I think that's her biggest weakness: the quirks and cool minor characters stopped Jesse from ever being fully developed and that's really too bad/angering.

Also, there was this little passage about which I'm still not sure how I feel:

"Ester has taken a little notebook out of her book bag and is writing something across the top of one page in big letters.
'To do!' she crows.
'It sounds like a lot of hard work,' Jesse said listlessly."

Emphasis mine, but get it? Because it's a to-do list? And it's not Jesse making it? Ba ha ha. Was this an inadvertent pun? Or was it an intentional stealth pun? If the latter, four for you, Glen Coco! You go Glen Coco...

(ahem). But back on point. The final thing that bothered me about this book (and a lot of realistic YA I've been reading, actually) is that NOTHING IS RESOLVED. Emily and Jesse:

Spoiler

Sure, they broke up (from whatever their weird sneak-make-out-but-Emily-still-has-a-public-boyfriend relationship was), but what about Jesther? (Yes, I just made a couple name portmanteau. I blame the Internet.) Jesse and Esther dance together at the end... but are they going to get together? Were they dancing as friends?? Damn you, Madeleine George!

Wyatt/minor characters:

Spoiler

So what, Jesse- you get to be a bitch for most of the book to people who love you (Wyatt, you made that comment about cancer to your MOTHER, etc) and they're just chill with it without you ever really apologizing? Okay.

And worst of all, StarMart:

Spoiler

WHAT THE HELL? This was the main secondary conflict in the story that underscored the tense relationship of Emily and Jesse... and you're leaving it completely open-ended. Will the coalition of weirdos (Jesse calls herself that) raise enough money to combat the StarMart store and stop it from coming to their town? Will the school's corporate sponsorship end? Who the hell knows, you ENDED THE BOOK. //book hits wall//

Overall, just a let down. It hurts to be this critical- I love YA and anything with LGBTQIA themes- but this book just didn't do it for me.

Maybe I'm getting too old for YA because I read this book in three hours just so I could be done with it.

I picked this book up because I heard it had butch rep, which is so so rare even in literal f/f romances, but honestly it made me kind of glad there isn't more trope-y, stereotypical butch rep in YA. All the characters-- but especially the butch one-- seem like canned archetypes. Nothing about this "realistic fiction" seems remotely real. Emily annoyed me. Esther seemed like an afterthought of a character.

None of the plot lines really get resolved. I didn't enjoy this book. I gave it two stars because I really liked Jesse's parents and the role they had in their daughter's life, but that's it. Bad butch rep really bums me out.

If you like nerding out on grammar, you will like this.

Really liked the chapters from Jesse's pov, but Emily's (told from the first person, to reflect her self-absorbed, shallow character) does not grant Emily much humanity.