Tell Me Three Things

 Tell Me Three Things written by Julie Buxbaum is a book about a girl named Jessie who has to go through a whole new life after her mom died and her father found someone new. Jessie is currently 16 years old and her mom died due to cancer when she was 14. Her father found someone new online in California and took Jessie with him to live their lives in California.  Moving to California from Chicago meant Jessie would have to transfer to a whole new school, not knowing anyone there. As she goes through her first day of school, she receives an anonymous text from a student at her school. She doesn't know who they are and why they are texting her but this mysterious person refers to themselves as Somebody/Nobody or SN for short. Jessie would be going through her new life with the assistance of SN and her friend Scarlett who is back at Chicago. She tells Scarlett about her plan to go back to Chicago, but on a trip there, Jessie realizes she has to face through with the circumstances after neglecting Scarlett's feelings. As any other new school situation, Jessie makes new friends with her classmates and starts to get along with her new family. As the story continues, the relationship of Jessie and SN starts to progress, revealing SN's identity.

But that part is for you to discover.


The unique part about this book is how Buxbaum structured the way SN and Jessie are able to communicate. In the first few pages, SN emails Jessie and you could see the messages that they sent including the subject and their emails. I thought this was a pretty cool fact since Buxbaum could have easily told the reader that one emailed the other but instead she creates unique emails for the characters and even added the subject as the response to the previous email. An example from the book:

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To: Jessie A. Holmes (jesster567@gmail.com) not a real email

From: Somebody Nobody (somebodynobo@gmail.com) again, not a real email

Subject: your Wood Valley H.S. spirit guide

    hey there, Ms. Holmes, we haven't met irl, and I'm not sure we ever will. I mean, we probably will at some point-- maybe I'll ask you the time or something equally mundane and beneath both of us-- but we'll never actually get to know each other, at least not in any sort of real way that matters . . . which is why I figured I'd email you under the cloak of anonymity.

    insert 7 more paragraphs of text here

    yours truly, Somebody Nobody

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Once again I'll try to give my thoughts without spoiling too much of the book. 

Overall, I got interested in this book even though it is in the romance genre. Or so I thought. It turns out there was a whole mystery between who this SN person was and I was hooked. Buxbaum introduces the character on the second page of the book which made it really easy to hook readers that are persuaded into reading a book because of their curiosity. If SN was introduced 10 or more pages into the book, I may have stopped reading before I even reached the mystery. Because all mystery genre books reveal the secret identities at the end, I got to read the plot of the entire book to find out who this person was while also reading about Jessie's positives and negatives. It even hooked me more when the characters are portrayed with how the current modern teens talk. Buxbaum managed to include the characters using slang and sarcasm in a way where it wasn't painful to read. The lesson of the book was given at the very beginning but the rest of the book was like the evidence to support the lesson. If you didn't read the beginning of this post or just zoned out, the lesson is how you should move forward on with your life because holding on to the past will just make it ever so painful.

- Adrian Tso

 

Comments

  1. Simrah KhanFebruary 25, 2023 at 7:09 PM

    Hi Adrian! I read this book last year and over the summer, and I LOVED it. I also initially read it thinking it was a romance, but got hooked after Jessie started suspecting who SN was. Also, it's amazing how you included the theme of getting over the past and moving on with the future! Great review, you summarized the book really well!

    ReplyDelete
  2. LenaFebruary 27, 2023 at 10:59 AM

    Hi Adrian, this book sounds like a really interesting read. I like how you viewed this book as evidence leading up to a lesson, and now that I think about it, I think you could say this for many books. I think that it's interesting that some authors choose to write dialogue using the same slang that we use today. I think that it could help the reader to form a better understanding of the character in some ways. However, when I read I like to imagine the characters as if they lived in their own world, and it's sometimes strange to read writing that is set up similar to how a person might text today. Good job!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eve AndersonMarch 4, 2023 at 10:11 AM

    Great blog post! I have already gotten a little curious about who this "SN" is. I always find it kind of entertaining when books have text written like modern teenagers (who apparently enjoy using email), especially given the author is usual much past being a modern teenager.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DizaMarch 12, 2023 at 9:30 PM

    Hi Adrian!
    I like the way that you structured this review, and did not give spoilers. This book sounds interesting, and the mystery of SN is not given away. I was also interested in your final sentence, when you said that the moral of the story was to stop holding on to stuff from the past. I don't particularly agree, since memories are remarkable, but I like that there was a moral in the book, it usually makes it more rounded off. Great job!

    ReplyDelete

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