Tell Me Three Things
What's it about
Ever felt completely alone in a new school, wishing someone would just throw you a lifeline? Imagine getting an anonymous email from a secret admirer who knows exactly how you feel and wants to help you navigate the treacherous waters of high school social life. You'll follow Jessie as she tries to uncover the identity of "Somebody/Nobody," her mysterious online guide. This journey will help you understand the power of vulnerability, the messiness of grief, and the surprising places you can find friendship and even love when you dare to be yourself.
Meet the author
Julie Buxbaum is a New York Times bestselling author and a graduate of Harvard Law School, whose acclaimed novels for young adults explore the complexities of grief and identity. A former lawyer, she left the corporate world to pursue her passion for storytelling, drawing on her own understanding of navigating life’s unexpected turns. This unique background allows her to craft authentic, relatable characters who find connection and hope in the most surprising of places, much like Jessie in Tell Me Three Things.
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The Script
You’re in a crowded high school cafeteria, but you’ve never felt more alone. Every table is a fortress, a self-contained ecosystem with its own language of inside jokes and shared histories. You scan the room for an opening, a friendly glance, any sign that you might be welcome. But all you see are closed circles. The noise is a wall of sound, but the silence inside your own head is deafening. It’s the paradox of modern loneliness: surrounded by people, yet completely isolated. In that moment, a simple, anonymous message—a text from an unknown number, an email from a secret admirer—offering a hand of friendship would feel less like a mystery and more like a lifeline.
This exact feeling of being an outsider looking in, of desperately needing a connection in a new and alienating world, is what compelled Julie Buxbaum to write “Tell Me Three Things.” After a career as a lawyer, Buxbaum turned to writing fiction, exploring the complex emotional landscapes of teenagers. She wanted to capture the specific vulnerability of starting over, a feeling she understood deeply. The novel grew from a single, powerful question: What if, in your loneliest moment, a mysterious guide reached out to help you navigate the treacherous social terrain of a new school? Buxbaum crafted a story about the profound hope and humanity found in the simple, anonymous act of reaching out.
Module 1: The Architecture of Grief and Displacement
Grief is a fundamental reordering of your world. For the protagonist, Jessie, her mother’s death isn't a past event; it’s the new center of gravity around which her entire life orbits. She literally counts the days—"Seven hundred and thirty-three days after my mom died." This number is a constant, painful reminder that time moves forward, but the loss remains fixed.
This leads to a profound sense of displacement. Shortly after the loss, Jessie’s dad remarries a stranger from the internet and moves them from Chicago to a lavish, unfamiliar home in Los Angeles. This is a complete erasure of her old life. The new house feels sterile, like a museum, with white couches and white walls that seem designed to prevent anyone from getting too comfortable. She feels like an interloper, a guest in her own life. This experience reveals a critical insight: major life disruptions compound the isolating effects of grief. Jessie isn't just mourning her mother; she's mourning her home, her friends, and her entire sense of belonging. The move forces her into a new high school where she knows no one, intensifying her feelings of being lost and alone.
And here’s the thing. Society often offers simple platitudes for grief. "Time heals all wounds." "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Buxbaum, through Jessie, directly challenges these notions. Jessie thinks, "But something did kill her, and I’m not stronger." This raw honesty is crucial. Grief doesn't follow a predictable, linear path toward recovery. It involves unpredictable shifts, moments of forgetting followed by the fresh shock of remembering. It’s a messy, ongoing process. This perspective is vital for anyone leading a team or navigating personal relationships. It reminds us that people experiencing loss aren't just having a bad week; their entire operating framework has changed.