Tell Me Three Things in What's the Name of That Book???

Mar 03, 2016 Emma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned

"Over email and text, though, I am given those few additional beats I need to be the better, edited version of myself."

Jessie doesn't want to live in California. She doesn't want a new stepmother when her mother's death two years earlier is still painfully fresh. She can definitely do without her snobby new stepbrother. She hates leaving her best friend behind in Chicago and wishes her dad would try to understand why she's so upset.

Her new super fancy prep school in Los Angeles is filled with pr "Over email and text, though, I am given those few additional beats I need to be the better, edited version of myself."

Jessie doesn't want to live in California. She doesn't want a new stepmother when her mother's death two years earlier is still painfully fresh. She can definitely do without her snobby new stepbrother. She hates leaving her best friend behind in Chicago and wishes her dad would try to understand why she's so upset.

Her new super fancy prep school in Los Angeles is filled with pretentious students, confusion, and very few potential friends. When she receives an email from someone, Somebody/Nobody to be more specific, offering to help her make sense of her perplexing new life Jessie isn't sure what to think. Is his offer a genuine chance to get some help? Could it be an elaborate prank?

The potential of a new friend and some much-needed information win out. The more Jessie and SN email and text, the more she wants to meet him in person. But as she gets closer to discovering SN's identity, Jessie also wonders if some mysteries should remain unsolved in Tell Me Three Things (2016) by Julie Buxbaum.

Jessie feels like a stranger in a very strange land when she is thrust into a higher income bracket at her predominantly white private school. This relative privilege is addressed and handled well over the course of the novel while Jessie tries to reconcile her middle class sensibilities with the new luxuries she is starting to enjoy. Jessie's online friendship with SN and her real life struggles to befriend her classmates serve as another contrast in this story where perception can change everything.

This novel also ruminates on the nature of grief and moving on as Jessie struggles to hold onto memories of her mother while watching her father start a shiny new life. The awkward and often frustrating dynamics of becoming a (reluctantly) blended family add depth to this already absorbing story.

Tell Me Three Things is filled with humor and wit as a sweet romance unfolds. Jessie's narration features a singular voice with a unique perspective on her surroundings and her new classmates. She is self-aware enough to acknowledge her shortcomings in struggling to reconcile herself to her new step-family and home while also harboring a healthy dose of naiveté about other aspects of her life.

Buxbaum breathes new life into a familiar premise in Tell Me Three Things. Readers may be quicker to guess SN's identity than Jessie but that journey, like the rest of Jessie's story, is all the more satisfying for the serendipity and potential near-misses along the way. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre, The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando, To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han, Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu, Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake, Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo, The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder, In Real Life by Jessica Love, I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales, The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

You can find this review and more on my blog Miss Print ...more

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Jan 30, 2016 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016, julie-buxbaum

Loved it!

Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help?

It’s been barely two years since her mo ...more

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Feb 05, 2017 Liz rated it liked it

Shelves: contemporary-and-realistic, 3-star, young-adult

I wanted to like this one so much more and it just...fell kind of flat for me. The characterization was pretty all over the place. For example, Jessie's relationships with Scar and with Dri were both really well done. The relationship between Jessie's dad and Rachel? Not so much. Also thought Gem was kind of cardboard for a mean girl.

A lot of the plotting here was really good but...I don't know what was going on with the last couple of pages. Everything got way too complicated right as the story ...more

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