Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum (Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)Also by this author: What to Say Next
Published by Random House Publishing Group on April 5th 2016
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
What if the person you need the most is someone you've never met? Julie Buxbaum mixes comedy and tragedy, love and loss, pain and elation, in her debut YA novel whose characters will come to feel like friends. Tell Me Three Things will appeal to fans of Rainbow Rowell, Jennifer Niven, and E. Lockhart. 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? The thing is, Jessie does need help. It's been barely two years since her mother's death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son. In a leap of faith--or an act of complete desperation--Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline and closest ally. Jessie can't help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some mysteries better left unsolved?
Tell Me Three Things:
1. I will definitely be reading more of Julie Buxbaums YA stories.
2. I kind of read this whole story in just one day.
3. I absolutely adore Jessie.
If you don’t have this book on your radar yet, please make sure you add it to your to read list immediately.
I was pleasantly surprised by Buxbaum’s debut YA novel and I think that a lot of people are going to fall in love with her writing and this story once it’s out.
Jessie has had her life flipped upside down over the last few years… the death of her mother two years ago was just the beginning. Now her father’s suddenly met someone new and married her of all things. But that’s not the only surprise. They’re selling the house she grew up in in Chicago and moving to L.A. for her junior year of high school and she gets no say in the whole mess.
Leaving her best friend Scarlett behind, she’s forced to navigate the crazy that is Wood Valley High School, but someone is willing to offer her some guidance … anonymously. SN (Somebody/Nobody) is a mystery and while this person knows exactly who she is, Jessie is at a loss and trying to figure out who he/she just might be.
So yes, part of this story is following along with Jessie and trying to figure out who this kind soul is. I have to admit that I pretty much had the person pegged pretty early on, that said, I was still pleasantly surprised with how much I still enjoyed it.
I really loved Jessie. Her grief for her mother is heartbreaking and having to give up everything familiar without any thought to how it will affect her had me wanting to pull her father aside and say “really?” I loved that eventually she and her father had it out and when she said she was allowed to be angry… I seriously wanted to hug her and say yes… yes you are!
Being that Jessie is now in an exclusive private high school so of course I was expecting the mean girls that she experiences. I wish we had a bit more reasoning behind the way Gem and her friends all treat her so horribly. (Is it because she’s not like them?) I will say that I loved the bond she had with Dri and Scarlett and ultimately Agnes though I was sort of confused about her role in the book, possibly to show that Dri wouldn’t be replacing Scarlett in any way (I believe she says at one point that Agnes is Dri’s Scarlett?)
Can I also say that I wanted more Theo? I love the bond that formed between him and Jessie despite the way things may have started (temper tantrum anyone?). They were good for each other and it was lovely to see the way their relationship develop.
Buxbaum is definitely going to be an author to watch in YA. She manages to tell a story filled with depth and sadness and yet it’s light and funny and sweet. The story never overwhelmed me with sadness even though there was sadness within it. A quick paced story with a bit of a mystery will have readers turning pages quickly and finding a story of love, friendship and acceptance that fans of Rainbow Rowell and Becky Albertalli will definitely enjoy!
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