rgz Street Team: Miss Erin Reviews Same Difference by Siobhan Vivian

The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.

Today, Miss Erin reviews Same Difference by Siobhan Vivian, which is a postergirlz recommended read this month:

"Same Difference centers around the main character Emily's adventures at a summer art camp in Philadelphia. It's a coming-of-age story in the true sense: throughout the book, Emily undergoes a complete transformation of self, the way she sees the world, and the way she sees the people and world around her.

"This book started off a little slow for me, but I'm so glad I stuck with it, because I enjoyed it a lot. Just as with the author's first book, I loved and was grateful for the focus being on the friendship vs. romance. Yeah, there was a romance, but it wasn't the sole defining experience of Emily's time at the art program.

"The best thing about Same Difference was all the wonderful themes it explored. For instance, it showed that transitional time of being a teenager; the defining moment when you realize that your world is a slate that you can experiment and draw on, and if you don't like what you are right now, you can erase and start over. But you also realize that even if you want to start completely over, there's stuff you can't simply make go away. You can change yourself, but you can't (as much as you might want to) make the people around you change. Sometimes you can't even make them realize that you've changed.

To read the rest of Miss Erin's review, click here.