The Skinny
(aka Back of the Book Summary in a Sentence)
Jessie is having the worst time adjusting to her new high school until she gets an email from Somebody Nobody, an anonymous helper who acts as her guardian angel at the new school.
Nutritional Value
(aka What’s Good)
The premise is interesting. Whoever wrote the back of the book summary deserves a high five, or at least a fist bump, for being able to hook readers in.
Freezer Burn
(aka What’s Bad)
Does Julie Buxbaum hate Los Angeles and Los Angeles schools? Because she describes the LA school in the book as “a wasteland of mostly blond, vacant-eyed Barbies and Kens.” I know there’s a quote section at the end of the review, but I just needed to put this here as evidence.
And the author also keeps comparing high school to a war zone. Do teenagers lose their limbs in English class? Are bullets constantly flying while students learn calculus? No. So stop with those comparisons. They’re disrespectful.
Lingering Aftertaste
(aka My Prediction)
I’m pretty sure Jessie ends up with Somebody Nobody. This is the type of YA romance that ends that way.
Taste Test Verdict
(aka Would I Read More?)
Just like I do not like chocolate chip cookie dough, I do not like this book. I can definitely see the appeal of it. New girl gets constant anonymous help from a boy. It’s romantic. But I was not enjoying all the stereotyping. Seriously, it’s like the author just watched a Hollywood high school movie and decided to base all her characters off of those stereotypes, but make sure to make them even less nuanced.
Memorable Morsel
(aka Quotable Quote)
If Jessie already thinks high school is a war zone, then she’s going to think college and the working world are the deepest pits of hell.
No, high school will never be a time I look back on fondly. My mom once told me that the world is divided into two kinds of people: the ones who love their high school years and the ones who spend the next decade recovering from them. [. . .] So go figure; maybe there’s a third kind of person: the ones who never recover from high school at all.
What did you guys think of your high school years? Sound off in the comments below!
Get Tell Me Three Things
Gwen thinks that it’s as close to magic as humans can get when a blank Word document is filled with groups of letters, and those groups of letters turn into lines, and those lines turn into a whole new world.
When Gwen isn’t reading or writing, she’s drinking boba milk tea and singing along to Steven Universe. You should sing along with her.