Simply awful. Could not even finish it - especially after this:
"...at her heaviest, she'd weighed 119 pounds -- horrible! (Nadia was just five feet four inches tall.) By the start of the fall term she'd managed to get her weight down to 111, which was still high -- her goal was ninety-eight..." (p 201)

Nadia had been described as chubby, round, flabby, etc, and when I got to that description, I just lost it. I tried really hard to plow through, though. I assume that though it is the narrator spe More...

Okay so I am really disappointed. Maybe it's because I was so SUPER excited to read this, that the let down is hitting even harder, but whatever it is I'm so upset to say that I couldn't finish this book.

There is a number of things wrong with this. First of all the writing it, for the most part, a jumbled mess. It's a series of run on sentences separated by even longer parenthesis. I mean by the time you get to the end of the sentence you've already forgot where you were when it started. All th More...

I have never read a Joyce Carol Oates novel before, but I have heard many great things about her writing. When I heard she was returning to the Young Adult scene, that piqued my interest. Once I learned about Two or Three Things I forgot to Tell You, and that it was along the same lines of Wintergirls and Thirteen Reasons Why(Which I both loved!) I was excited to give it a try.

The book started off a little slow for me. There was a lot of character development in the beginning and not so much sto More...

Tink was the new girl in town -- a former child star, now just unique. Before the story begins, Tink has died, likely the result of a suicide. Merissa and Nadia, two of her friends are having a difficult time dealing with Tink's death. Each girl is coping in different ways -- Merissa is cutting and Nadia is obsessing over a young teacher. Each girl is also certain that Tink is very present in their lives.

While this book is very readable and incredibly difficult to put down, it's really not very More...

Told from the perspective of 2 high school students after a friend of theirs commits suicide about various ways they are coping with their own emotional issues. Personally, I didn't really like this book--I would give it 2 stars myself--although more objectively speaking, it's a well-written book I think teens would like and lends to conversations about suicide, cutting, cyberbullying, etc. What bothers me is that having grown up as a NJ teen in a relatively affluent town (like the girls in the More...

Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You by Joyce Carol Oates

In Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You, a somewhat unconventional Young Adult novel, Joyce Carol Oates explores the pressures and experiences of the senior year of high school for several friends. First, let me say that I am always amazed that Joyce Carol Oates manages to produce the volume of work that she does. I am in awe that one woman is so prolific and that so much of it is just so engaging and well written. But it strikes m More...

Alicia's review: "Their last year together. This year, without Tink."

It is only in the minds of our narrators, Merissa, the over-achieving golden girl, and Nadia, uncertain and innocent, that we get to know Tink Traumer, the mysterious girl who showed up one day at Quaker Heights High School and changed their lives forever. All of them. Merissa, Nadia, Chloe, Hannah and sometimes Anita Chang. But, now Tink is d**d.

Joyce Carol Oates writes the most chilling type of fiction, no matter what the sub More...

The first half of the book alone would have gotten two stars. It's melodramatic and extremely sentimental, but Merissa's story was the more realistic. Her's is the typical straight A, perfect blond that everyone loves but who is secretly unhappy. Blah blah. Despite her being somewhat unlikeable, I was actually moved by her story.

Nadia is SO FAT. She's--gasp--119 pounds at her heaviest and 5'4"! I know the point is for the reader to realize she isn't fat and pity her, but everyone in the book com

More...

I love Joyce Carol Oates, but I'm not a big fan of YA, so take that for what you will. This book was good, but it was definitely stuck in its genre. Oates is a master of narration, but this book was manic. This was ridiculously melodramatic and aimed at easily impressionable tween/teen girls. The book was very literary in its merit, but the plot was so overly wrought for its sentimentality and attempts to connect with its target audience.

The book is told from multiple perspectives in the afterm More...

I was very lucky to have won this book from firstreads! It turned out to be a very good book. This is the first book I have read by this author. I am going to have to read more of her books. The book is about a group of teenager girls with some problems. I am so glad I am no longer a teenager. I am sure it is even harder now than it was was then to be a teenage girl. I am not even going to say how long its been. At first I was appalled that one of the girls thought she was fat at 119 pounds. She More...

I have read a few of this author's works before, and I like her writing for the most part, so I was interested in seeing how a young adult book of hers would be. It was a lot different from what I expected. From the little blurb about it, it seemed to be about a girl who committed suicide and how she never really left? But really it's more focused on the remaining friends, how they are coping with her death and the individual problems they have. I liked this book, it felt very honest to me. The More...

Joyce Carol Oates in an author that I’ve seen frequently when I’ve browsed the shelves of a school library. She is a New York Selling Best author especially in the are of young adult literature. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the experience of reading one of her novels. This was a first. I read this book in a day, truly committed to the lives of Merissa, Tink and Nadia. The novel is arranged into three distinct parts. Each part featuring one girl. In this novel we are presented with aspects of tee More...

It's like 3.5 stars. It started off strong and then got weird. I feel like this was a book more about the way adults perceive teens then actually about teens. Like it was very issue of the week, let's put in some teen speak, this is what's going on the in the lives of these affluent white teens, isn't it scandalous? This is what I've heard. But presented in a YA book. Problem is that cutting, suicide and obsession with teachers have all been done before so by now it's old news and a bit cliche. More...

Through the point of view of two girls, this story tells what happens to them after the death of a friend. Merissa, who is the first to tell her story, cuts herself because she doesn't believe she deserves good things in life, especially after her emotionally abusive dad moves out. Nadia, also victim of her dad's emotional distance, is the second girl to tell her story. She fixates on her science teacher, believes herself to be in love with him, and almost gets him fired. Both the girls and thei More...

For more of my reviews, check out my blog @ Moosubi Reviews!

Rating Clarification: 1.5 / 5

At first glance, the blurb definitely gives a sense of mystery, especially one around Tink. It seemed to me that Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You would be a touching story, full of emotion. While the stories presented in the book, to an extent, touched me, I found that the writing did not appeal to my tastes...

The book is mainly divided into three parts, covering the stories of Merissa, Tink, and Nad More...

This was an amazing book. Perfect for Jr High aged students because it deals with bullying, suicide, cutting, and friendship. This book for the most part was an easy read and also easy to understand. This book is told in parts and shows the different impacts that each of these things can have on teens. There is some strong language in this book. One of the main characters in the book is actually a spirit, because she killed herself, so when you are reading you you have to understand that she isn More...

After the death of their friend Tink, seniors Melissa and Nadia feel their own lives spiraling out of control, and both contemplate ending their lives. Tink's spirit, though, keeps both of them hanging on. While the author captures well the imperfection and fear that often lie beneath the surface of Melissa's outer perfection and the gossip and maliciousness that make life hard for Nadia, she fails to offer much that helps readers see how each girl manages to transcend the challenges in her life More...

This is an interesting and beautifully crafted story about individuality and friendship flowing against the pressures facing upper class American girls as they complete high school. It gets to me how small the world is for these girls, all about popularity, pleasing parents, looks, getting into top schools to please parents - and these things become life or death. The presence of the character Tink, who truly does face life or death issues, shifts the reality for two of the characters. I enjoyed More...

It makes me sad to only give this three stars. I really love Joyce Carol Oates, because she deals with some really dark aspects of relationships. I didn't find the cutting narrative particularly realistic, but I could believe Nadia's story. I am also not really sure about the choice to have the story told from the perspective of those two characters. The book didn't feel as cohesive as I would have liked. Regardless it was still pretty good. I am not disappointed that I spent New Year's Eve and More...

In the beginning I was totally confused, what was going on!? I really did not like Merissa, she has problems. I don't get why she cuts herself? Sure, to punish herself, but she is so rude to her friends, like Nadia! She called Nadia fat when she's like 119 pounds, and that is not fat. I honestly don't know where the author was going with this book, my friend said this was a great book and to be honest I don't think so. Maybe that was the point...I'm disappointed. Hopefully if I ever reread this More...

Joyce Carol Oates books generally focus on the vulnerability of women and what can happen to them when they least expect it, especially if they wander into situations or places they are physically or emotionally unprepared to handle. Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You, the author’s latest Young Adult novel (said to be appropriate for readers 14 and up), is a cautionary reminder that women first enter this danger zone as girls – when peer pressure and a desire to “fit in” make them especial More...

Due to copy and paste, formatting has been lost.

Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You was one of the most frustratingly good books that I have read in a long time. It was frustrating because the language was weird-- a mish mash of italics, parentheses, and run-on sentences. It was good because I felt like I could relate to Nadia and Merissa, and maybe even Tink in my own way.

They are three very different girls with very different problems, but they all relate to each other, and they all knew More...

Review Posted on Reading Lark 8/26/12: http://readinglark.blogspot.com/2012/...

I really appreciate the authors who step up and shine lights on some of the not so pretty aspects of being a teen. I applaud them for having the ability to show teens that they are not alone in their struggle. There is someone out there - even if it's just a fictional someone - that understands their pain. These novels are critical and contain lessons that teens need, but they are often heartbreaking and difficult to More...

Joyce Carol Oates in an author that I’ve seen frequently when I’ve browsed the shelves of a school library. She is a New York Selling Best author especially in the are of young adult literature. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the experience of reading one of her novels. This was a first. I read this book in a day, truly committed to the lives of Merissa, Tink and Nadia. The novel is arranged into three distinct parts. Each part featuring one girl. In this novel we are presented with aspects of tee More...

I really hate my terrible memory. I thought Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You sounded like something I'd like, but the name Joyce Carol Oates sounded familiar, and I didn't know why. If I'd thought about it more, instead of going with the "Ooh. Want. Buy." instinct, I would have remembered that I'd read Big Mouth & Ugly Girl by this author and that I didn't like it. I probably wouldn't have read Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You knowing that, and that would have been a good thi More...

2.5 stars. To me this was two books, wither of which would have gotten at least 3 stars from me, smushed together. I can see what Oates was trying to do, but I wish she had a) dropped the Nadia section and kept it through Merissa and Tink's POVs, or b) cut back on the Merissa stuff and added in another additional friend's story. There were all these girls in the first part and the switch to Nadia was really sudden, I kept expecting it to switch to another of Tink Inc. and flesh out more of them. More...

I'm sorry to say that I couldn't finish this book. I guess I got my hopes up to high and just got terribly disappointed along the way.
I started this book with high hopes on a realistic, emotional story about a girl who has to make her way through high school after her best friend killed herself.
But it wasn't, I felt like it were just random sentences packed up together to a 'story'. The main character pissed me off big time most of the time, by talking bad about everybody and saying shit about e More...

I won this book from Epic Reads and very happy I did. This is not a book I would have bought myself as it is not a genre that I typically read and if I wouldn't have won it I would have missed out reading this fabulous book. I really enjoyed reading about real life struggles and although I'm far from a young adult it brought me back in time remembering the challenges of being a teenager. Loved it!

I'm hugely enjoying this - Joyce Carol Oates is one of my literary idols. I love the way she shifts time frames so masterfully, the narrative perfectly captures teenage the outlook, a highly overwrought one albeit. I'm only in the Marissa section so can't comment very far as yet.
I suppose if you don't already know Oates' work you might find this a shock and difficult to read. But I love it. Her style is what makes it.

I am a huge fan of Oates and it’s clear from the start that this is not her typical novel. YA is a new genre for her. The story is told from multiple narrators, which are all high females, even when the pov switches to 3rd person it is limited to the high school perspective. She is true to her story.The whole Nadia section gets repetitious and it seems like Tink gets a little lost, but other than that it’s a good read.