The Difference Between You and Me Hardcover – March 15, 2012

The only thing that budding activist/misfit Jesse and perfectly polished student council member Emily have in common is how much they both enjoy kissing each other, every Tuesday afternoon in an out-of-the-way corner of the public library. No one knows about their weekly rendezvous and Emily plans on keeping it that way, despite Jesse's desire to be open about her feelings for Emily. When Emily manages to hook a corporate sponsorship for school events and a number of the student body protests--led by Jesse--the relationship between the girls becomes more about their differences than about the few things they share.The Difference Between You and Me is a thoughtful, funny, and memorable novel. The story alternates between the Jesse's and Emily's perspectives and although their romantic entanglement is what brings them together, it isn't the focal point of the book. With an excellent balance between humor and gravity, George explores how Jesse and Emily handle standing up and speaking out about their beliefs, how they each deal with conflict, and how far they are willing to go to be themselves. For the protagonists, their reactions to the conflict mirror how they view their sexuality and how much they each value their relationship with each other. George resists putting a label on any person or situation while posing an important question to readers: Is it harder to go with the flow and live with the consequences, or to stand up to stifling ideas and people, no matter the consequences? All of the characters are vibrant and multi-dimensional and the dialogue rings true, making for a smart, humorous, and important book that demands to be read in one sitting

The character voices are great, though you really only get to meet one character for one chapter and never have her point of view after that - so that's kind of pointless. Overall, a heartwarming story but the ending leaves much to be desired. It kind of just...ends. The description of the book implies some huge crossroads turmoil plot point, but it literally just ends, and you kind of sit there like "Oh...I guess that works." Not a bad book by any means and I'd definitely recommend it, but it wasn't great, either.

I hate hippies, and I don't understand going out of one's way to stand out. In fact the only character, that didn't completely annoy me was Emily, and even she had her moments. And yet I still enjoyed the book

Finished this in one day, and hoped until the very end they’d end up together. It’s definitely for a high school audience, but was a beautiful love story still.

I really, really enjoyed this thoughtful, empathetically written coming of age story. Especially loved Jesse's voice.

My daughter read this in school and wanted to have her own copy to reread. She loved it

Good book for younger teens but don't expect too much if you're 16+

This is a great coming of age/gay story. I'd say it's best for high schoolers, and for the reading level that's true, but it's also a warm heart pulling story that teaches great lessons for all ages.

It's a really interesting teen book and as others have commented Emily comes across as self-indulgent, and selfish even though her intentions at times may be good. However I found her character annoying and this was probably helped by the fact that her chapters are in first person, helping to convey the me first attributes of the character. I enjoyed reading Jesse's chapters and found her rather amusing, especially as she would end up getting herself in some strange predicaments; plus I enjoyed following the relationship between her and her mother. Esther's character was probably introduced just to allude that there may be a spanner in the works, but nothing really developed.My gripe with this book is that I feel like half of it is missing, the author has left the story in mid air and it finishes rather abruptly. I feel that she has left too much to the imagination; I want to know what happens to Esther, Emily and of course Jesse but the author doesn't reveal anything this truly disappointed me. It would have been given 5 stars if it were not for the premature ending, to me it seems that George was getting bored with writing the book and so decided to wrap it up as quickly as possible.

I liked it