I read and reviewed Siobhan Vivian’s Same Difference for Booklist the year it was released. I was struck – I still am – by the book’s slow, deliberate unfolding of the story mirroring the unfolding and growth of the main character. I was surprised by the character, just as she was surprised by what she was growing into.

Siobhan Vivian has never shied away from these types of characters: young women who know themselves, and stretch to know themselves better. What I find really wonderful about this is that these are not easy characters to write. It’s easy to find teen characters who learn and grow – it’s kind of a thing in YA lit – but finding teen characters who are conscious of their growth, interested in stretching beyond the boxes that they have been placed in by their age, their gender, their social groups, or their society, and realistically self possessed as they do so. I love that her characters feel so real because they, like all of us, are complicated. They have dark sides, they want things they’re not supposed to want, they think things that “nice girls” don’t talk about, but they’re people we cheer for because this realness makes us know them.

Vivian is a New York native, an editor and teacher in addition to her novel writing. She can be found online, and is active on Twitter, but fun fact: there’s no Wikipedia page about her yet. So someone get on that, ok?

Novels:

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