The characters felt very flat and one-dimensional.

DNF at 100 pages. I was going to continue with this, but I found out I just couldn't. Some reasons why:

-I just didn't care about the characters. At all. If you know me, you know I love character development and character analysis and just characters in general. A story can be crap and if I can find one character I become attached to and care about what happens to them - the whole book isn't ruined for me. For this book, it wasn't the case. I mean, the characters were well written. They were interesting, if slightly obnoxious. But almost halfway through the book, I found I didn't care what happened to them. Something terrible could've happened and I would've just sighed and turned the page.

-The story was moving along at a snail's pace and I found myself skimming a lot of parts. Also Emily's narration was just...irritating for some reason.

-I didn't *want* to really read this book. I mean, I did when I picked it up from the library. But about fifty pages in, I just wanted to finish it because I had so many others to read.

I'm overly persistent when it comes to finishing books (not series - if the first book doesn't catch my interest enough I won't read the others), but with this I just couldn't trudge on any longer. It's a shame, because I love LGBT+ fiction, especially in YA, and I think there needs to be a lot more of it. This isn't a good example of it. If you are looking for good LGBT+ themed stories I recommend Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe or Beauty Queens - both great, with interesting, well-written characters. I'm sad I had to give up on this one, but it was really tying my patience.

(originally published on 5/6/12)
Emily and Jesse could not be more different: while Emily is the vice president of the student council, Jesse is the founding and only member of NOLAW, National Organization to Liberate All Weirdos, and, for the most part, remains an outcast. Regardless, the two forge a secret relationship, meeting up every Tuesday in the library bathroom to spend private time with one another. It’s clear from the beginning that Jesse has true feelings for Emily, but Emily wants to keep their relationship a secret from everyone—including her boyfriend.

But when Emily seeks help from StarMart—a massive company with a questionable reputation—to fund a school dance, and Jesse begins fighting to keep StarMart out of their school, the girls are forced to face how different they really are, and to question what it is that they’re doing together.

The Difference Between You and Me is at times a little messy, both in character development and writing style. Emily’s chapters are written in an easy-to-read first person, but Jesse’s are written in an awkward, third person present tense. I don’t know if this is an attempt to set up a contrast between the two girls’ personalities, but it felt clunkier than Jesse’s fisherman boots. What’s more is that two of the chapters are written in the voice of Esther, another classmate of Emily and Jesse, who, while an important character to the story, talks mostly about her love of Joan of Arc. George’s choice to give Esther her own chapters seems an odd one, especially since Esther’s beliefs and motives came out loud and clear in the rest of the story.

I really like Jesse; her personality and actions throughout the novel are consistent, and she comes off as genuine and human in her shift from solo political rogue to tag-team anti-StarMart campaigner, as well as in her questioning of her beliefs.

Emily, however, is a bit trickier to decipher. She is a very proper and by-the-book person, which is odd considering that she is cheating on her boyfriend with a girl who is nothing like her. About her sexual orientation, she states right at the beginning of the novel, “With me, it’s about the person”–which would have been understandable if she seemed to genuinely care about Jesse’s feelings, or if she liked her for her personality rather than for how hard she kisses her.

The ending is satisfactory, though left a little ambiguous. Certainly, though, a little fogginess on the part of Jesse and Emily is okay; relationships in the teen world are rarely clear-cut and understandable. I also like the twist that George puts on Jesse and Emily’s relationship, serving as a reminder that not every same-sex relationship is a cookie-cutter tale of who is and is not out of the closet.

I had really wanted The Difference Between You and Me to be perfect; there’s no doubt that teen fiction featuring LGBT characters is in short supply. And I feel that if the writing were a bit neater and the concepts more clear this book could be a real heavy hitter with all teens—though there are likely those who will find strength in the subject matter regardless.

Ok, so I think I'm ready to review this book. I needed to get some space away from it, first. I guess it just pissed me off, more than anything. In Madeleine George fashion, the chapters alternate perspectives between main characters, much like "Looks". My problem with this book was just how crappy Jesse gets treated over and over again, and how oblivious Emily is to everything taking an ounce of brains/intelligence/common sense. I KNOW people get treated badly every day; I KNOW it's hard to be queer and out in high school; I KNOW there are uber ditz girls in high school and life. I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW. But seriously, someone as awesome and anti-establishment, pro-justic, anti-"The Man", and serious enough about her politics and sense of justice to guerilla post handmade posters all over the school ... she just takes shoddy treatment and blatant ignorance from a chick she digs? Really? REALLY? It's just SO unbelievable and frustrating, that the book is just almost not worth reading at all! Now I say "almost" because I don't presume to tell people what to read -- pick up this book, read it, and I want to know what others got from it; what redeeming qualities you found in it? Because I'm honestly at a loss. The main focus of this book should have been Esther - peaceful protesting, detention-getting, fuck-fakers attitude chick. She would've made this a much more interesting book. This could have been a short story and gotten as much of a point or whatever across as it did in an entire book. ughh. Just pissed me off.

A short, intriguing high school novel about a rebel who falls for a prep. The story is told from the perspective of both girls, but (not surprisingly) the rebel's perspective seemed deeper and more sympathetic. The prep, while not totally villified, came off as shallow and not worthy of the rebel's heart. I think it would've been a more interesting book if the prep had been more likable.

Really, the most interesting character was Esther, a friend of the rebel's who is obsessed with Joan of Arc. Esther deserves her own novel.

When I think of this book, I will remember that the rebel wore giant boots all the time because she needed lots of wiggle room for her toes.

I also liked that the rebel's parents were interesting characters who actually made a difference in the plot. So often in children's and YA fiction the parents are not a factor in the kid's life, unless they're heinous.

Not sure what I expected but an attempt to resolve any of the plot threads would be the first thing missing from this book. I thought we were coming up on about 70% of the book, which is traditionally where out MCs start to grow and work out ways to overcome their differences or the conflict. Surprisingly, I was actually at 96% of the book. When I got to the ending, I refused to believe it was actually the end because literally none of the plot points were close to resolved. I'm actually kind of mad about after thinking about the ending for a bit.

2.5 stars

The character voices were incredibly strong, and it's clear that character is one of Madeleine George's strengths as a writer. Jesse, Esther, and Emily have their own particular way of telling their story, and as a reader, I really appreciated how drawn out they were. I loved, too, that there were a few things that I hadn't expected to happen. I wanted to see more with these characters, though. I felt there were holes (and, while I did like that it was there, there was a lot of activism interwoven into the plot, and sometime I felt that everything else got lost in it) and wanted to see everything balanced out and expanded upon. Overall, however, I enjoyed it. The book is definitely honest in its portrayal of how complicated love is, and I found myself hoping that Jesse would find someone who would love her, shouting it to the world.