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Chapter 8
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
Jessie shares that before her mom died, she and Scarlett used to talk about what would make the perfect day. Jessie’s perfect day wasn’t anything crazy—it maybe contained a first kiss, but it was mostly about not feeling shy or stubbing her toe. Jessie now thinks she can’t have a perfect day without Mom. All days before Mom died seem perfect in retrospect. Jessie shares that she and Mom had an unusually close relationship. Even though Mom read the Harry Potter series to Jessie, Jessie can no longer remember Mom’s voice when she reads the books. She thinks that she’ll never feel like she belongs to someone again, and that maybe perfect days are for people whose dreams are small.
This explanation of how close Jessie and Mom were speaks to why Jessie is so entrenched in the past. Again, while this isn’t something to fault Jessie for—losing her mom was understandably traumatic—she still suggests that she can’t have good days, let alone perfect ones, now that Mom is gone.
Themes
