Tell It to Naomi

by Daniel Ehrenhaft

Dave Rosen has a secret. “Naomi,” the wise, witty, always-on-target, female writer behind his high school’s hit advice column, is, well, him. A native New Yorker who likes secondhand CD shops, The Simpsons, and meatball heroes.

A kid like him doesn’t have all the answers. He doesn’t even have most of the answers. Dave only got himself dragged into this fiasco to help out his older sister, the real Naomi—and because he let himself be convinced that it might, in some lunatic way, enable him to meet his dream girl, the senior who gets his weak little sophomore heart racing: Celeste Fanucci. If he could get Celeste to write in and open up her soul to “Naomi,” he could use this secret knowledge to transform himself.

He could bridge the unbridgeable chasm between sophomore boys and senior girls. It’s a grand, grand scheme. And it’s about to go haywire.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Teen, Humor, High School, Chick Lit

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Daniel Ehrenhaft is the author of several dozen books for children and young adults—so many books, in fact, that he has lost count. He has often written under the pseudonym Daniel Parker (his middle name, which is easier to spell and pronounce than his last), and occasionally Erin Haft. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Jessica, as well as a scruffy dog named Gibby and a psychotic cat named Bootsy. When he isn't writing, he tirelessly travels the globe on a doomed mission to achieve rock stardom. As of this date, his musical credits include the composition of bluegrass soundtrack numbers for the epic straight-to-video B movie The Grave, a brief stint playing live rap music to baffled Filipino audiences in Hong Kong, and scoring the still-picture montage Election Trip. He once worked in a cheese shop. He was fired.

Reviews

[Katie Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katie Young
Humor

Dave Rosen, an insightful teenager, lives with his mother, aunt and big sister Naomi who just graduated from college and is searching for a job as a journalist. Naomi helps her brother get the job as an advice journalist in school as well as lending him her name. This he hopes will endear him to his love interest, Celeste Fanucci who is the new girl in school. The advice column goes well. However, this deceit comes with consequences as Dave eventually must tell the truth and be held accountable by his classmates and teachers.

This story is told from Dave’s point of view. It is a fun story to read and the characters are enjoyable. This book was easy to read and follow. I enjoyed the story immensely. This would be a good addition to any Young Adult collection.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Dave's a high school sophomore with a crush on a new senior girl, Celeste. When Celeste talks to Dave's older sister, Naomi, who's trying to launch her own journalism career, and mentions that she used to write an advice column for her old school's paper, Dave decides that perhaps writing an advice column for his school paper would be a good way to win her over. Only problem is, when Naomi pitches the advice column idea to the school's journalism advisor (her ex-boyfriend), he believes that Naomi wrote it and can't believe Dave is actually the author. So the advice column begins to run but attributed to a fictional "Naomi", and as it grows in popularity, Dave begins getting sucked more and more into the lives of his anonymous readers.

This was a really cute story. Dave is likable and self-depricating enough to be relatable. Although I didn't find it to be completely believable how popular his advice column became so quickly, it was easy to just accept this as fact because the story itself was entertaining and, of course, there wouldn't have been much of a story had the column not been popular.

I really liked the scenes between Dave and Naomi; they had a great brother/sister bond and all their interactions felt so natural. The various characters, because Dave was "seeing" so many of them through their anonymous letters, seemed more multi-faceted than in many books, which also led to Dave reflecting on how so many people have he same sort of problems that feel like a big deal yet aren't. A handful of letters to/from Naomi were included in various chapters, which were fun to read and helped round out the story.

My only real complaint about this book is the ending - it just sort of stopped without a real resolution or finale. I felt like perhaps my copy was missing the last chapter, the ending was so ambiguous and unresolved. That was quite a disappointment after enjoying the rest of the book, to have such a lack of a finale. Up until that point, I really enjoyed it, but the ending made it, unfortunately, kind of forgettable.

[Marie Cataquet · Rating 4 out of 5]

David is a 15yr old sophomore that lives with his mom, aunt and sister in New York. David has a crush on a new student Celeste who is a senior. When David sister Naomi suggest he writes a advice column for his school newspaper he thinks its the perfect plan to make Celeste fall in love with him.
I like how its a good coming of age story and it is written funny.

[Reader Gal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man, it really took me approximately 6 months to read this. I was in a big reading slump. Anyways, it was a bit cheesy, but made me laugh A LOT. I'm giving it three stars because I wanted a bit more to the plot and how things ended up. The author made me realize how relationships and friendships occur.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick and easy read. Cute teen book. About a boy who becomes an advice columnist to win over a girl, but uses his sister's name to do it. (small) Hijinks ensue and everyone learns a lesson. I enjoyed it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute! Chick lit for boys. Kind of. In a harebrained scheme concocted by his neurotic older sister to forge a romantic relationship with the girl of his dreams, fifteen-year-old Dave Rosen pretends to be a female advice columnist for his school newspaper.

[Librariann · Rating 4 out of 5]

High school sophomore Dave Rosen starts writing an advice column in his school's paper to get to know a senior girl he has a crush on - but everyone thinks that the column is written by his sister, Naomi. Humorous light fare.

[Sarah Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was awesome. I really liked it. I'm so surprised that I finished it.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I read this book on a dare...a couple of friends and i went to the library and dared each other to check out and read these books, but surprisingly, i really liked this one....

[Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is good, but I don't like it's ending.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this book, especially since Dave is portrayed as a boy in touch with his feminine side. There aren't a lot of books that do this any more without over doing it.

[Naomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this, just because of the title. It was a decent premise and had lots of promise, but was pretty poorly executed. The story and characters weren't fleshed out.

[Theo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever, but shallow.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sebuah teenlit yang sebenarnya tidak terlalu menarik ya kalau boleh jujur saja. Hanya cukup menghibur.

[Clarissa Candrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little confusing at first since this edition, the Indonesian translated one, doesn't use "he" or "she". So it's hard to tell the gender, who's who and all.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

So sweet! Loved the voice! Where was Dave Rosen when I was in high school?

[Karla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is normally not "my" kind of book, but I enjoyed this. It was an easy and fun read.

[Deria · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not my kind of book, but I kinda enjoyed it. The reason why I picked this book is because the price is very cheap. And honestly I don't like the main character here, too girly I think.

[Ashley]

#
CompNtBk
Borrowed from the library.

FS:

LS:

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 3 out of 5]

1011th - 2011