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Chapter 1
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
Googling “who is SN?” turns up no results, so Jessie thinks back to her first day of school. It was awful, but no more awful than every day has been since her mom died. She figures that she must’ve caught someone’s attention with how pathetic she was. The first day was embarrassing on so many levels. Jessie’s stepbrother, Theo, pretended she didn’t exist and drove to school alone, so Jessie got stuck in Los Angeles traffic by herself. At school, she parked in the lot filled with luxury cars and joined what she thought was her first period class, which was sitting in a circle on the lawn. All the girls were wearing tiny dresses on their slim bodies, while Jessie was wearing dark jeans. She sat down between two attractive guys.
Everything that happens on Jessie’s first day makes it clear that Jessie doesn’t fit in. She doesn’t have the right car (while she never says what she drives, the fact that she points out others’ luxury cars suggests that hers isn’t a luxury model), she doesn’t wear the right clothes, and she can’t even turn to her new stepbrother for support.
Themes
One guy, Caleb, was talking about how he climbed Kilimanjaro over the summer and built a school in a rural African village. Jessie starts to clap, but she’s the only one. The next guy, Liam, says he interned at Google—the food was great—and backpacked through India. He amends his story to say that he stayed in nice hotels to please his parents and got an application essay out of the experience. The teacher, Mr. Shackleman, calls on Jessie to speak next. Jessie says nervously that she just moved from Chicago and spent her time working at a smoothie joint at the mall. The other kids look pitying. Mr. Shackleman asks Jessie if she’s a senior, rudely says he’s not Mrs. Murray, and points Jessie inside. Only later did Jessie realize she had grass stuck to her backside.
As far as Jessie’s concerned, building a school in Africa is something worth applauding. The fact that no one else thinks so points to the fact that at Wood Valley, where everyone is wealthy and well connected, it’s not impressive for someone to spend their summer doing service work in Africa. Liam makes this clear when he notes that what he really got out of his summer travels was an application essay. The point of these trips isn’t to experience different cultures or have fun—it’s to beef up one’s college application. Thus, Jessie’s summer job is pitiable, since she’s clearly not going to be able to write about it and get into college with it.
Themes
Two weeks later, Jessie stands in the cafeteria and wonders where to sit. She can’t sit with Theo, who ignores her and spends time with a girl named Ashby. Jessie is privately shocked that Theo is so popular because in Chicago, Theo would’ve been teased for being so flamboyantly gay. Jessie considers eating in the fancy, elaborate library (her library in Chicago was a “book closet”), vows not to eat in the bathroom, and then heads outside. She passes the Koffee Kart and notes a guy in a Batman T-shirt and a gaggle of girls there. The Batman ignores the girls as they try to get him to walk with them. Jessie thinks the Batman is cute, but he looks sad and exhausted. As Jessie walks past, one of the girls snaps “What are you staring at?” at her. It’s the first thing anything has said to her.
When the first thing Jessie hears is something that makes her feel unwelcome, it again drives home how out of place she is at Wood Valley. The culture is, in so many ways, foreign to her, so it’s unthinkable to her that she’ll ever be able to call this place home. Further, experiencing bullying like this on her first day underlines the fact that she’s attempting to infiltrate an insular community that doesn’t take well to newcomers.
Themes
