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nickoliver's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Second read February 2021:
After finally finishing my re-read, I can safely say I absolutely do not like this book anymore. I was a big fan of it when I first read it, even put it on my favourite books shelf, but my opinion drastically changed.
First of all, I'm very split on the plot itself. Usually, I'm a huge fan of anonymous pen pals who fall in love online (and, most of the time, simultaneously in real life). They're stories I enjoy immensely. However, in "Tell Me Three Things," the power dynamic was uneven. All the power was in SN's hand, and none in Jessie's. After all, SN knew the entire time who Jessie was - it was even the reason why he started writing to her in the first place -, but she had no idea who he was. While his reasons for contacting her were innocuous at first, it quickly became creepy.
SN kept complimenting Jessie with sentences like "You look nice today," which always reminded me that he paid attention to her during the day and knew who she was. It was like saying, 'I know who you are, you can't hide from me.' Honestly, he kind of gave me stalker energy, but a stalker who actually voiced all of his admiration out loud to the person he stalked. What was pretty infuriating about this was the fact that every time SN acted creepy, Jessie would just call him 'weird' or a 'weirdo'; like, this type of behaviour isn't just weird, it's fucking creepy and should concern you, but it was always downplayed by her. (Also, the word "weird" was used way too often; Jessie and SN would've definitely been able to relate to Jughead on Riverdale, I swear.)
Secondly, I had a hard time with Jessie herself and really strongly disliked her. It was really difficult for me sometimes to remember that she was a teenager and many things that I found grating about her could be contributed to her age. For example, the fact that she fixated on her looks all the time, or that she took other people's insults too much to heart, even if the insults were simply idiotic. Or the fact that she jumped to ridiculous leaps in regards to SN's identity sometimes. For example, when SN asked her where she worked and she told him, Caleb came to her workplace, so of course she immediately figured he had to be SN. And she never wavered from that opinion, even if there were countless clues that Caleb wasn’t, in fact, SN (SN always disregarded everything she said regarding her meetings with Caleb, Caleb was friends with Liam, so obviously him going to the bookstore wasn’t that far-fetched). If she’d just communicated with SN properly, this book could’ve been over 100 pages earlier.
Jessie was also very self-absorbed.It was like she was drowning in her grief so much that she thought she was the only person on this entire planet who struggled with something. She barely paid any attention to other people’s problems but expected everyone to listen to hers. And the fact that she was still always so easily forgiven was annoying. Plus the fact that every guy was into her; Buxbaum kind of turned her into a Mary Sue, and how 2010 was that.
Even knowing that it could be just her acting like a typical teenager, certain things were just very hard to overlook. Jessie was very much Not Like Other Girls. She spoke badly about literally every single girl she came across, even if they hadn't done anything to her, and then was all *Pikachu face* when it turned out that she misjudged them. Like, girl, maybe give others a chance instead of putting them into boxes literal seconds after meeting them. She was constantly judging other people but pretended not to be doing that.
Lastly, Jessie was extremely sex-obsessed and sex-focused, and it was extremely tiring for me to read. Someone could say something completely innocent, and her brain would somehow manage to make it about sex. Innuendos would be fine, but she literally made things about sex that weren't meant to be about it. The book also made it seem like having sex was always a natural progression of a relationship, like it was impossible to be romantically involved with someone without jumping into bed at some point? I'm asexual, so it always hurts and bothers me to read that.
Apart from Jessie, I also wasn't a big fan of any of the other characters. Like I mentioned above, the male characters all seemed to be into her for absolutely no particular reason, and the female ones either befriended her no matter how shitty she was being, or they were in the story just to bully her and add some good old ~girl hate~.
Additionally, some of the characters were just casually homophobic or threw the f-slur around like it was free real estate, and it was very frustrating. And Theo was honestly the kind of queer rep that made me go, 'Eh, I'd rather you call me a slur instead.' No one took his problems seriously, or thought he was just overreacting, because how dare a gay guy not want to be called the f-slur by his stepdad.
Moreover, I really didn't like the writing. Buxbaum included this one YA cliché that I can't stand, which is having characters use "big words" and then having others always commenting that they were, in fact, using big words. We get it, y'all were weird for knowing that waffle could be a verb, now please move on to the plot AND STOP COMMENTING ON IT? That shit was annoying as hell.
I did still like the part of the story about Jessie grieving her mother's death, and the ways in which it made her feel alienated from her peers. And her and her dad's relationship fascinated me, too, especially the different ways in which they dealt with the mom's death. But that was the only thing I truly enjoyed.
Overall, this just didn't do it for me anymore. The main character was horrible, all the side characters were woefully underdeveloped, and the writing drove me up the wall. And the plot was honestly just creeping me out.
First read August 2016:
(This opinion is not really accurate anymore, but I'm gonna leave it here, anyway.)
Granted, this book isn't exactly innovative and it's clear quite early on in the story who SN is. But the characters are likeable (despite being a tad bit naive and slow-witted; or at least Jessie the protagonist is) and it has a lot of funny moments that made me smile.
Aside from the humorous side, the book also contains some more serious aspects in the form of Jessie's dead mom. "Tell Me Three Things" has the perfect balance of sad, thoughtful "I miss my mom"-breakdowns and quirky mundane incidents. Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot!
After finally finishing my re-read, I can safely say I absolutely do not like this book anymore. I was a big fan of it when I first read it, even put it on my favourite books shelf, but my opinion drastically changed.
First of all, I'm very split on the plot itself. Usually, I'm a huge fan of anonymous pen pals who fall in love online (and, most of the time, simultaneously in real life). They're stories I enjoy immensely. However, in "Tell Me Three Things," the power dynamic was uneven. All the power was in SN's hand, and none in Jessie's. After all, SN knew the entire time who Jessie was - it was even the reason why he started writing to her in the first place -, but she had no idea who he was. While his reasons for contacting her were innocuous at first, it quickly became creepy.
SN kept complimenting Jessie with sentences like "You look nice today," which always reminded me that he paid attention to her during the day and knew who she was. It was like saying, 'I know who you are, you can't hide from me.' Honestly, he kind of gave me stalker energy, but a stalker who actually voiced all of his admiration out loud to the person he stalked. What was pretty infuriating about this was the fact that every time SN acted creepy, Jessie would just call him 'weird' or a 'weirdo'; like, this type of behaviour isn't just weird, it's fucking creepy and should concern you, but it was always downplayed by her. (Also, the word "weird" was used way too often; Jessie and SN would've definitely been able to relate to Jughead on Riverdale, I swear.)
Secondly, I had a hard time with Jessie herself and really strongly disliked her. It was really difficult for me sometimes to remember that she was a teenager and many things that I found grating about her could be contributed to her age. For example, the fact that she fixated on her looks all the time, or that she took other people's insults too much to heart, even if the insults were simply idiotic. Or the fact that she jumped to ridiculous leaps in regards to SN's identity sometimes. For example,
Jessie was also very self-absorbed.It was like she was drowning in her grief so much that she thought she was the only person on this entire planet who struggled with something. She barely paid any attention to other people’s problems but expected everyone to listen to hers. And the fact that she was still always so easily forgiven was annoying. Plus the fact that every guy was into her; Buxbaum kind of turned her into a Mary Sue, and how 2010 was that.
Even knowing that it could be just her acting like a typical teenager, certain things were just very hard to overlook. Jessie was very much Not Like Other Girls. She spoke badly about literally every single girl she came across, even if they hadn't done anything to her, and then was all *Pikachu face* when it turned out that she misjudged them. Like, girl, maybe give others a chance instead of putting them into boxes literal seconds after meeting them. She was constantly judging other people but pretended not to be doing that.
Lastly, Jessie was extremely sex-obsessed and sex-focused, and it was extremely tiring for me to read. Someone could say something completely innocent, and her brain would somehow manage to make it about sex. Innuendos would be fine, but she literally made things about sex that weren't meant to be about it. The book also made it seem like having sex was always a natural progression of a relationship, like it was impossible to be romantically involved with someone without jumping into bed at some point? I'm asexual, so it always hurts and bothers me to read that.
Apart from Jessie, I also wasn't a big fan of any of the other characters. Like I mentioned above, the male characters all seemed to be into her for absolutely no particular reason, and the female ones either befriended her no matter how shitty she was being, or they were in the story just to bully her and add some good old ~girl hate~.
Additionally, some of the characters were just casually homophobic or threw the f-slur around like it was free real estate, and it was very frustrating. And Theo was honestly the kind of queer rep that made me go, 'Eh, I'd rather you call me a slur instead.' No one took his problems seriously, or thought he was just overreacting, because how dare a gay guy not want to be called the f-slur by his stepdad.
Moreover, I really didn't like the writing. Buxbaum included this one YA cliché that I can't stand, which is having characters use "big words" and then having others always commenting that they were, in fact, using big words. We get it, y'all were weird for knowing that waffle could be a verb, now please move on to the plot AND STOP COMMENTING ON IT? That shit was annoying as hell.
I did still like the part of the story about Jessie grieving her mother's death, and the ways in which it made her feel alienated from her peers. And her and her dad's relationship fascinated me, too, especially the different ways in which they dealt with the mom's death. But that was the only thing I truly enjoyed.
Overall, this just didn't do it for me anymore. The main character was horrible, all the side characters were woefully underdeveloped, and the writing drove me up the wall. And the plot was honestly just creeping me out.
First read August 2016:
(This opinion is not really accurate anymore, but I'm gonna leave it here, anyway.)
Granted, this book isn't exactly innovative and it's clear quite early on in the story who SN is. But the characters are likeable (despite being a tad bit naive and slow-witted; or at least Jessie the protagonist is) and it has a lot of funny moments that made me smile.
Aside from the humorous side, the book also contains some more serious aspects in the form of Jessie's dead mom. "Tell Me Three Things" has the perfect balance of sad, thoughtful "I miss my mom"-breakdowns and quirky mundane incidents. Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Vomit, and Acephobia/Arophobia
CW for usage of the f-slur