SAME DIFFERENCE

Emily isn’t sold on spending the summer commuting from her wealthy suburban enclave to the Philadelphia College of Fine Arts, but she might as well: Her lifelong best friend “Meg got a boyfriend and I got a hobby. That’s just the way things worked out.” As in A Little Friendly Advice (2008), Vivian focuses on teenage girls’ quests for identity and the consequences for their friendships. Meeting and eventually befriending Fiona, whose intoxicating persona is as studiously bold as her own is retiring, forces Emily to rethink her approaches to art, fashion, friendships and romance. Resentments large and small simmer, then boil over between Emily and Meg, while Fiona turns out to be not quite the virtuoso she initially appeared. Emily finds her way slowly, messily, with breakthroughs spurred by her daily sketchbook exercises, emerging on the other side of summer with a bruised but hopeful heart. Readers who have wondered, “Are these the friends and the life I want to have?” will see themselves reflected in Emily’s achingly real struggles, heartbreaks and triumphs. (Fiction. YA)