Tell Me Three Things

 Jessie A. Holmes is starting a new high school. The problem? Wood Valley High School is a snobby conglomeration of stick-thin, half-naked Barbies, moody and mysterious Kens, and curious teachers with a passion for leopard print, all with too much money, and no place to spend it. Amongst washboard abs and barely there summer dresses is Jessie. Her scrunchie-plaid shirt combo just doesn’t cut it, and her summer adventures at the local Smoothie King won’t measure up to backpacking in India and volunteering at a music camp halfway across the world. At a glance, Tell Me Three Things is your average, run-of-the-mill young adult novel starring an awkward girl starting a new school (not unlike my very first book review, wink wink) and a recently widowed father who remarries a richer woman with a child older than the FMC (wink wink). 

But Tell Me Three Things is more than a high school coming-of-age type situation. It’s also a romance–although the two do go quite nicely together. Within her first few weeks at WVHS, Jessie gets an email from Somebody Nobody (SN). As cringe-inducing as his name is, SN offers Jessie his help navigating the jungle, as he likes to call it. Soon, emailing becomes texting, and as Jessie starts ramping up her efforts to discover his true identity, they begin a daily ritual of telling each other three things. So I think that, in keeping with the book’s theme, I should tell you three things about this book.

    (1) Buxbaum encapsulates the whole “stereotypical high school” vibe excellently. From the way the characters text to the way Jessie herself thinks, it’s all very reminiscent of the way people think high school is like, both before and after the whole ordeal.

    (2) Besides the romance, TMTT is also, at its core, a mystery. Who is SN? Why does he care about Jessie? How did he find her contact information? 

    (3) I really liked it. And I think you will too (if you love YA books, romances, and just a little bit of mystery). 

- Emma Tong