Friday Memes: Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice.

Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum. 325 p. Delacorte Press, April 5, 2015. 9780553535655.

Publisher synopsis: 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?

First line: Seven hundred and thirty-three days after my mom died, forty-five days after my dad eloped with a stranger he met on the Internet, thirty days after we then up and moved to California, and only seven days after starting as a junior at a brand-new school where I know approximately no one, an email arrives. 

Page 56: "Can I help you?" he asks, like I'm the next customer at a drive-through. I remember our English project, and how he just assumed I could be railroaded like everyone else.
    "So 'The Waste Land'..." I say, and tuck my hands into my back pockets, trying to look casual. "If you don't want to work together, that's fine. But then I need to tell Mrs. Pollack and find another partner. I'm not just going to let you do the work."
     There, I said it. That wasn't so hard. I breathe out. I feel lightheaded and shaky, but nothing that can be seen from the outside, I hope. My mask firmly still in place. Now I wish he could just hand me my Happy Meal and end this thing.

-----

I spied the cute cover while standing on a line at AASL waiting for an author autograph. Since I have a waffle iron that makes heart-shaped waffles, which I use fairly frequently to make the most delicious gluten-free waffles ever, I had to ask about the book. I didn't want to leave my place in line, so I called over to two reps who were talking near it and said, "Tell me three things about Tell Me Three Things." Yeah, not the most ingenious opener but I was given the arc!