Tell Me Three ThingsBy Julie Buxbaum
Delacorte Press, 2016. 336 pgs. Young Adult
After losing her mother, gaining a stepmother and moving cross-country, Jessie is feeling lost. During her first week in Los Angeles, she receives an email from an anonymous fellow student calling himself Somebody/Nobody (SN) offering advice dodging the pitfalls of her new prep school. A few friends later and several weeks of relying on SN, she wants to meet. But will reality live up to her idea of Somebody/Nobody?
You’ve Got Mail is one of my favorite movies and needless to say, I am drawn to the trope of the mysterious, unidentified pen pal. Jessie and SN are well-drawn characters you can’t help liking even if I correctly predicted SN's identity from the beginning. My favorite part of the novel is their funny and thoughtful text messages.
Despite the predictability and the at times forced teen drama, I still enjoyed the sweet and comical conclusion of this novel about two teens dealing with grief, identity and first love in a challenging social environment.
HSG
1 comment:
After Jessie lost her mother to cancer she was coping well-enough, but then her dad sells their house, moves them across the country to live with the woman he eloped with during a business trip, and enrolls her in an elite private school where she feels lost and very alone. When she gets an anonymous email from “Somebody Nobody” claiming to be a male student at her school and offering to act as her “virtual spirit guide,” Jessie is suspicious but desperate enough to accept the offer of help. Through a series of text and emails where she gets to know Somebody Nobody, she discovers she has plenty in common including the loss of a loved one.
Though this book uses several familiar YA tropes such as a jealous, mean-girl antagonist, an easily identified secret admirer, and a teen girl who is oblivious to how pretty she is, I still found this book captivating. The writing is deft and the authentic depiction of grief made for well-rounded, emotionally deep characters.
Post a Comment