Review- Tell Me Three Things (Julie Buxbaum)

Synopsis

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 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?
Julie Buxbaum mixes comedy and tragedy, love and loss, pain and elation, in her debut YA novel filled with characters who will come to feel like friends. 

                     - Goodreads.com

My Review 

This was a nice fluffy contemporary perfect for my vacation in the tropics. As many YA’s start, we have a girl who’s moved to a new school for some reason or another. In this case, after Jessies mother’s death her father remarries, dragging them across country to move in with his new wife in LA and Jessie is thrown into a world she knows nothing about.

“Not feeling like I belong anywhere has made me crave constant motion; standing still feels risky, like asking to be a target.” 

- Julie Buxbaum (Tell Me Three Things)

One of the downsides of the book was its easily transparent ending. From the start I knew who S/N was and I’m no genius. It just felt all a bit too easy, like the author didn’t have enough faith in the readers to figure it out on their own along the way,  (or maybe the lack of patience in today’s society led her to believe we couldn’t wait till the end for the big reveal.). So she gave us large clues, which took a bit of the mystery out of it.

However in saying that, the book was still plenty enjoyable and worth the read. It touches on some important life events, like the death of a parent and dealing with the remaining parent remarrying, including the difficulties of becoming a blended family, changing schools, starting over and of friendships; old, new, and growing apart.

My rating: 3/5