From the popular girls mean comments to the falls in the classroom, she considers moving back to Chicago. From Chicago to Los Angeles, Jessie struggles with her identity and her place in the jungle of Wood Valley High School. Julie Buxbaum writes about, Jessie, a teenager who has her life changed forever when her mother dies from cancer and her father practically elopes with a stranger. Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum is realistic fiction and romantic. She maintains suspense until the very end, and even if readers think they know who “Somebody Nobody” is, the desire to find out whether Jessie’s real-life and virtual crushes are one and the same will keep them turning the pages as quickly as possible. Could he be brooding, handsome Ethan, her English-project partner? The cute guy at work whose girlfriend has it in for her? Stepbrother Theo? The dialogue-both spoken and typed-is consistently funny, and adult author Buxbaum (After You) makes everyone, even subsidiary characters, believable.

Jessie begins making friends and grappling with her complicated family dynamics, but she’s always wondering about her correspondent. “Somebody Nobody” is a great virtual conversationalist, and they turn out to have plenty in common, including grief. The only good news is that a classmate and self-described “spirit guide” is anonymously emailing her tips about surviving Wood Valley High. Jessie’s mother has been dead for two years, and because her father has recently married a woman he met online and moved the family to Los Angeles, Jessie is starting her junior year at a fancy private school where she knows no one.

Book tell me three things