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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tell Me Three Things, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Blended Families
Intimacy and Growing Up
Wealth, Fitting In, and Bullying
Home
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
It’s been 733 days since Jessie’s mom died, 45 days since Dad eloped with a woman he met online, a month since they moved to California, and a week since Jessie started at a new school. She receives a mysterious email from someone who calls himself Somebody Nobody. He purports to be a 16-year-old classmate and admits that he’s been watching Jessie; she stands out when everyone else is “blond, vacant-eyed Barbies and Kens.” Normally, he’s not interested in what other people think, but Jessie intrigues him—and he’d like to offer up his expertise on Wood Valley High School. He can offer advice on who to befriend, what to eat in the cafeteria, and he’ll tell her now to be careful of Mr. Shackleman, the gym teacher—he likes to look at girls’ butts.
It’s telling that Somebody Nobody takes notice of Jessie because she looks so different from everyone else. Clearly, Jessie doesn’t fit in and is going to have to work hard if that’s something she wants to do. Somebody Nobody’s offer is, at its core, an offer of friendship, as he’s someone who will be able to introduce Jessie to how this California school operates. That is, they’ll be able to develop a friendship as Jessie listens to what he has to say and uses what she learns to become more comfortable here in California.
Themes
In her reply, Jessie refuses. She believes she’ll end up a joke on Tumblr if he’s pranking her. They banter for a few emails and then, Jessie sends a sexual innuendo and immediately feels weird—she’d never say something like that in person. In real life, she doesn’t know how to do more than kiss. Her only kissing experience, however, was a bad one with Adam Kravitz in ninth grade. Jessie reminds herself that she needs to be careful, since she doesn’t know who SN is and he’s probably a cruel jokester, not a secret admirer like in a romantic book. And Jessie lied in her emails too; she’s not tough, especially after moving to “the Valley” and starting at Wood Valley High.
Jessie is clearly uncomfortable with her lack of expertise when it comes to sexual contact with boys. Though it’s something she’s interested in experimenting with—as evidenced by her the sexual innuendo she uses in her email—actually taking steps to be sexy in person isn’t something she’s yet willing to do. This reminds readers that Jessie is still young, though it’s telling that Jessie links her immaturity simply to her sexual inexperience. Maturity comes from a variety of places, not just one’s sexual experiences.
Themes
Jessie knows she’ll never look back fondly on high school and remembers how her mom always said that there are two kinds of people: those who love high school and those who spend their lives recovering from high school. Mom also said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but now she’s dead. Jessie wonders if she’ll ever recover from high school.
High school is more fraught for Jessie than it is for many, simply because her mom died right around the time she started high school. She, importantly, doesn’t mention that her dad can provide emotional support, which suggests she lost a lot of closeness and support when her mom died.
Themes
