That’s a Great Question, I’d Love to Tell You Summary and Analysis
That’s a Great Question, I’d Love to Tell You by Elyse Myers is a reflective and deeply personal collection of interconnected stories that explore the awkward, anxious, and often humorous process of growing up and learning to understand oneself. Through vignettes drawn from different stages of her life—from childhood in California to adulthood across continents—Myers crafts an authentic portrayal of what it means to navigate fear, friendship, love, and self-discovery.
Her writing balances wit with vulnerability, allowing readers to see the beauty in discomfort and the strength in imperfection. The book feels like a conversation between past and present selves, threaded together by honesty and courage.
Summary
The book opens in Anaheim, California, in 2002, with young Elyse preparing for Halloween. She dislikes the holiday’s noise and fright but goes trick-or-treating with her friends Jessie and Nate.
While her brothers chase better candy elsewhere, Elyse trails behind her friends, quietly collecting chocolates. Their final stop is the dreaded corner house, transformed into a haunted circus.
Despite her fear, Elyse decides to confront it alone. She rings the bell, meets a costumed “ringmaster,” and receives candy along with a small Magic 8 Ball keychain.
Elyse names it Lucy and hides it from her strict mother, who disapproves of anything magical. In her diary, Elyse records her excitement about this secret object and the feeling of owning something that belongs only to her.
The next day, when she uses Lucy to decide whether to attend a classmate’s sleepover, the answer “SIGNS POINT TO YES” nudges her toward a small act of bravery.
The narrative then shifts to Elyse as a teenager, playing Seven Minutes in Heaven at a party with her friend Marley. Inside the dark closet, Elyse counts seconds and overanalyzes every movement.
Their conversation exposes unspoken emotions and confusion about their friendship. Elyse’s inability to express her feelings leaves the moment unresolved but charged with significance.
The next vignette, about her best friend Sophie, captures another turning point. Sophie introduces her to rebellion through cigarettes and secrets, and though Elyse refuses to smoke, she’s fascinated by the smell—the quiet stillness it brings to her restless thoughts.
These early stories trace the roots of Elyse’s anxiety and her search for belonging, showing how fear, secrecy, and curiosity shape her perception of the world.
A poetic prologue follows, reflecting on childhood belief and the inevitable loss of innocence. This theme sets the tone for “Factory Reset,” where Elyse, now a community college student, suffers a panic attack during class after lending a pen to a boy named Landon.
When he follows her outside to help, his calm words and empathy begin to ground her. Their awkward but genuine conversation marks the start of a friendship.
They bond over breakfast burritos and shared vulnerabilities—Elyse’s anxiety, Landon’s loneliness, and their mutual longing for connection. The story captures the fragile beginnings of trust between two people who rarely feel understood.
In “There’s Been a Misunderstanding,” Elyse studies abroad in Paris. At a nightclub, a language barrier leads her into an uncomfortable situation when she unknowingly spends an evening with a sex worker who believes she’s soliciting him.
The miscommunication spirals until the truth becomes painfully clear, leaving Elyse humiliated but more self-aware. This episode illustrates how misunderstanding and isolation can turn even ordinary moments into emotional minefields.
It also highlights Elyse’s innocence and her habit of overthinking interactions long after they end.
Later, in Sydney, Elyse’s struggles continue. A scene at a deli counter shows her overexplaining herself to a stranger named Jonas, whose teasing both unnerves and intrigues her.
Her self-consciousness reflects how even casual encounters become mental battlegrounds. A lyrical interlude about a long-distance relationship explores the hollowness of pretending to be “happy enough,” revealing her fear of wanting too much.
When the story shifts to her hotel job, Elyse faces conflict after a coworker finds her private notebook filled with personal observations about others. What could have been a disaster turns into understanding—Tabitha, the coworker, isn’t angry but amused.
Through this exchange, Elyse learns that her intense need to study people stems not from malice but from confusion about social cues. Her writing becomes both her coping mechanism and her window into human connection.
A humor-laced section, “How to Fold Hospital Corners in 10 Easy Steps,” turns a mundane chore into a metaphor for control. Elyse’s voice meanders between instructions for bed-making and reflections on anxiety, loneliness, and the quiet relief of pretending everything is fine.
The narrative style mirrors her mental clutter—structured yet chaotic, obsessive yet tender. “Everything She’s Ever Wanted” follows with a breakup scene told entirely through fragmented dialogue and imagined rewrites.
It examines how people try to reclaim power through what they wish they’d said. The story reveals Elyse’s evolving understanding of loss and communication—the realization that silence can be as defining as speech.
In “House Clothes,” Elyse faces the aftermath of another breakup. Her friend Alexis calls it “newfound singleness,” a phrase Elyse both mocks and hides behind.
She distracts herself with errands, wearing pajamas out of the house as if to test her confidence. When a classmate teases her, she spirals into self-consciousness, running through Sydney’s streets in both literal and emotional escape.
The chaos of the moment exposes her ongoing battle between vulnerability and composure—between wanting to appear okay and not being okay at all.
Returning to California, Elyse meets a man named Steven who makes swords. What begins as an odd encounter becomes a reflection on homesickness and identity.
She laughs at the absurdity of it but can’t shake her sense of displacement after years abroad. Visiting her friend Tessa, she finally opens up about a man named Jonas from Australia.
Elyse confesses she panicked when intimacy deepened and cut things off, but now she regrets it. As they talk, Jonas messages her—his friend has offered to fly her to Kansas to see him.
Encouraged by Tessa, Elyse agrees to go, torn between excitement and fear.
In Kansas, Elyse meets Jonas and his family. Their connection deepens through conversation, laughter, and moments of quiet understanding.
Though she previously asked him not to kiss her to avoid confusion, she feels drawn to him and later breaks her own rule. The kiss becomes symbolic—a merging of trust and vulnerability after years of guardedness.
Staying with Jonas’s family exposes Elyse to unfamiliar rural life, grounding her chaotic thoughts in something tangible and real. Her humor and discomfort—watching farm work, drinking whiskey to calm her nerves—contrast with her growing emotional clarity.
Through letters and reflections, Elyse articulates that even the painful experiences shaped her. Writing becomes her way of reclaiming her narrative.
When she drives to see Jonas again as his girlfriend, her anxiety resurfaces in a dream where he doesn’t recognize her. Yet when she arrives, Jonas’s warmth dispels her fear.
He reminds her that he has loved her since the beginning, and this time, when he asks if he can kiss her, she doesn’t hesitate. Their kiss marks acceptance—not of perfection, but of being fully seen.
By its end, That’s a Great Question I’d Love to Tell You feels like a conversation between versions of Elyse: the shy child, the anxious student, the awkward traveler, and the woman learning to live without apology. Across moments of embarrassment, humor, fear, and love, she discovers that connection—both with others and herself—comes not from getting everything right, but from being honest enough to keep trying.
Key People
Elyse Myers
Elyse is the heart and voice of That’s A Great Question I’d Love To Tell You, a character whose evolution from timid child to introspective adult forms the emotional core of the book. From her earliest years in Anaheim, Elyse embodies an almost paralyzing self-consciousness—haunted by fears both literal and psychological.
The Halloween night that opens her story reveals her longing for courage and her fascination with the forbidden, symbolized by the Magic 8 Ball she secretly keeps. As she matures, this hidden object mirrors her reliance on external validation and her search for guidance in a confusing world.
Her adolescence is marked by awkwardness, longing, and the quiet ache of being different—whether through her anxiety, her hyperawareness of social dynamics, or her inability to process emotions in real time.
In adulthood, Elyse’s introspection deepens. She becomes both the subject and observer of her own life, constantly analyzing her thoughts, relationships, and perceived failures.
Through encounters with Marley, Sophie, Landon, and Jonas, she learns to navigate intimacy, vulnerability, and the art of letting go. Her anxiety often manifests in overexplaining and self-deprecating humor, yet beneath the surface lies profound empathy and resilience.
Elyse’s journey is one of reclamation—turning shame and misunderstanding into self-awareness. By the book’s end, she embraces imperfection, recognizing that her anxiety and awkwardness are not flaws to erase but truths to live with honesty.
Marley
Marley represents both the comfort and discomfort of familiarity in Elyse’s life. As a close friend who knows her deepest fears, he becomes a mirror for her inner conflict.
During their tense encounter in the game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, Marley’s gentle understanding collides with Elyse’s panic and emotional defensiveness. He exposes her fear of intimacy and her tendency to hide behind humor when emotions grow too real.
Marley is patient, tender, and quietly brave—his willingness to be honest about his feelings contrasts sharply with Elyse’s avoidance. Yet he is also humanly vulnerable, his disappointment unspoken but deeply felt when Elyse retreats behind her emotional walls.
In the larger tapestry of the book, Marley is a representation of the love that could have been—the friendship that teeters on the edge of something more, teaching Elyse the painful truth that not all connections are meant to become romances, and that timing is often the cruelest form of fate.
Sophie
Sophie is Elyse’s embodiment of adolescent rebellion and peer pressure, a friend who moves through the world with a confidence Elyse both admires and fears. In “Sophie’s Cigarette,” she becomes a symbol of curiosity and pretense—the teenage impulse to appear older, bolder, and freer than one truly feels.
Through Sophie, Elyse experiences the thrill and unease of breaking rules, confronting both the allure of defiance and the comfort of restraint. Sophie’s bravado hides her own insecurity, but to Elyse, she represents a momentary escape from her internal chaos.
The intimacy of their shared secret—the cigarette behind the house—echoes the delicate balance of adolescence, where identity forms through imitation, experimentation, and silence. Sophie’s role in the narrative reminds readers that friendship in youth often serves as a testing ground for selfhood.
Landon
Landon enters Elyse’s life as an unexpected ally in her struggle with anxiety and isolation. Their meeting in “Factory Reset” captures the awkwardness of adult beginnings—the tentative steps toward connection that are equal parts vulnerability and defense.
Landon’s calmness and humor contrast with Elyse’s rigidity, creating a dynamic where compassion meets chaos. He becomes both a grounding force and a mirror for Elyse’s insecurities.
His kindness is effortless, his empathy unassuming, and his presence redefines Elyse’s understanding of friendship. Through Landon, she learns that not all bonds need to be romantic to be meaningful, and that being seen without judgment can be just as healing as being loved.
Landon is the kind of character whose quiet strength lies in his ability to make space for another person’s fragility without trying to fix it.
Jonas
Jonas is the emotional culmination of Elyse’s journey—a man who sees her in her entirety and loves her for it. Introduced first through small, awkward interactions in Sydney and later as a long-distance connection that turns into something deeper, Jonas represents the balance Elyse has long sought between chaos and calm.
He is patient and grounded, capable of both playfulness and sincerity, and he meets Elyse’s anxiety not with dismissal but with gentle curiosity. Their relationship unfolds with honesty and mutual respect, marked by hesitation, humor, and eventual surrender.
Jonas’s willingness to honor Elyse’s boundaries, even when they are inconvenient, highlights the depth of his respect and affection. Through him, Elyse finally experiences love not as a performance or misunderstanding but as acceptance.
Jonas embodies the story’s message of emotional bravery—the idea that love, at its best, allows one to be fully seen without fear.
Tessa
Tessa stands as Elyse’s anchor in moments of confusion and emotional overwhelm. As a friend and confidant, she offers practicality, warmth, and the kind of maternal bluntness that Elyse desperately needs.
In her scenes, Tessa’s presence brings both humor and grounding, contrasting Elyse’s spiraling introspection. She listens without judgment, asks hard questions, and gently nudges Elyse toward clarity.
Tessa represents the quiet, sustaining power of female friendship—the type that doesn’t need dramatics to be profound. Through her interactions with Tessa, Elyse learns that growth often requires conversation, courage, and a willingness to laugh at oneself even in moments of heartbreak.
Themes
Fear and the Pursuit of Courage
Fear serves as one of the earliest emotional landscapes explored in Thats A Great Question Id Love To Tell You. From the moment young Elyse faces her dread of Halloween and the terrifying house at the edge of her neighborhood, fear is not merely external but psychological—a manifestation of her inner hesitations and insecurities.
The haunted circus setup symbolizes the intimidating unknowns that accompany childhood and early adolescence, while Elyse’s decision to confront that fear by approaching the door becomes a quiet act of defiance against her own timidity. As she grows, fear evolves from the tangible—dark houses, strangers, school embarrassment—into the intangible: fear of rejection, emotional exposure, and loss.
Her interactions with Marley in the closet, with Landon during her panic attack, and with Jonas later in life, all reveal an individual in constant negotiation with vulnerability. The courage Elyse develops is not grand or heroic; it is subtle, personal, and repetitive.
It lies in her decision to keep participating in life, even after humiliation or heartbreak. The story implies that bravery does not erase fear but coexists with it.
Elyse’s gradual shift from hiding behind her friends on Halloween night to confronting emotional honesty in adulthood demonstrates a profound transformation—fear remains, but she learns to walk through it rather than away from it.
Loneliness and the Desire for Connection
Loneliness forms a quiet but persistent current throughout the narrative. Elyse is repeatedly positioned on the fringes of social circles—silent during trick-or-treating, anxious at school, misunderstood at parties, and isolated in foreign cities.
Her loneliness is complex; it is not born of complete isolation but of a struggle to feel understood within proximity. The Magic 8 Ball keychain, “Lucy,” becomes an early symbol of her attempt to create companionship out of solitude, transforming an inanimate object into a confidant.
This yearning matures into her adult relationships, where she oscillates between craving closeness and fearing its consequences. Her bond with Landon illustrates this paradox—when someone finally sees her, she panics, uncertain how to sustain intimacy.
Similarly, her connection with Jonas carries both relief and terror; she is drawn to authenticity yet frightened by its permanence. The narrative portrays loneliness not as a failure of social integration but as an intrinsic human experience—a condition of being aware of one’s own depth while doubting that anyone else can perceive it.
Elyse’s story suggests that connection requires risking misunderstanding and that even fleeting relationships can ease, though never fully cure, the ache of isolation.
Anxiety, Control, and the Fragility of Self
Anxiety defines Elyse’s relationship with the world, shaping her perception of control. From her color-coded pens in community college to her compulsive need to categorize people through her notebooks, her life revolves around small systems of order that counterbalance internal chaos.
The panic attack in “Factory Reset” reveals the extent to which anxiety governs her behavior—she does not simply experience emotion; she manages it like a constant negotiation between mind and body. This theme deepens when she transforms ordinary acts, such as folding sheets, into rituals of containment, where domestic order substitutes for emotional stability.
Yet these attempts at control are fragile, easily dismantled by human unpredictability. When Landon chews her pen, or when a coworker discovers her private notes, Elyse’s delicate boundaries fracture.
Through these moments, the book portrays anxiety as both a defense and a limitation—an attempt to create safety that inadvertently restricts genuine engagement with life. The narrative’s progression reflects a growing self-awareness: control cannot guarantee peace, and vulnerability may offer a different kind of safety.
By the end, Elyse begins to loosen her grip on perfection, accepting that her mind’s chaos does not make her unworthy of love or belonging.
Self-Discovery and Emotional Growth
Elyse’s journey across the stories in Thats A Great Question Id Love To Tell You traces the nonlinear path of self-discovery. Her growth is not marked by epiphanies but by the accumulation of small, awkward, and often painful moments that gradually shape her sense of self.
From the secrecy of keeping Lucy to the miscommunication in Paris and the heartbreak of her long-distance relationship, each experience forces her to confront the gap between who she believes she is and how the world perceives her. Her writing habit becomes an anchor, allowing reflection to transform confusion into meaning.
The letters and inner monologues scattered throughout the narrative reveal that Elyse’s understanding of herself emerges through articulation; she writes to make sense of experiences that otherwise feel chaotic. By the time she reconnects with Jonas, Elyse no longer seeks a version of herself that others will approve of—she begins to accept the multiplicity within her: anxious yet brave, awkward yet lovable.
The book closes on a note of reconciliation, suggesting that identity is not something one finds but something one builds from the fragments of fear, joy, and memory.
Love, Vulnerability, and Emotional Honesty
Love in Elyse Myers’ narrative is portrayed as both sanctuary and threat. It appears in many forms—childhood crushes, fleeting friendships, near-romances, and mature relationships—but always challenges Elyse to reconcile her longing for closeness with her instinct for self-protection.
Her hesitation during Seven Minutes in Heaven, her defensive humor with Landon, and her rules with Jonas all stem from the same internal conflict: the fear that to be loved is to be seen completely, flaws included. Yet through these relationships, she learns that love thrives not on certainty but on mutual vulnerability.
Jonas, unlike earlier figures, meets her where she is—respecting boundaries, waiting for permission, and offering consistency instead of intensity. Their connection becomes a reflection of emotional honesty, where love is expressed through patience and understanding rather than declarations.
The final kiss signifies not the triumph of romance but the acceptance of self within love. By allowing herself to be known and still choosing to stay, Elyse transforms love from an idealized fantasy into an act of courage—a decision to remain open even when the outcome is uncertain.
The Transformation of Innocence and Belief
The poetic prologue of Thats A Great Question Id Love To Tell You establishes belief as both a gift and a burden, framing the entire narrative around the loss and redefinition of innocence. Childhood belief, depicted as unguarded trust in parents, friends, and the stability of the world, gradually erodes as Elyse encounters disappointment and misunderstanding.
Her mother’s restrictive views on “magic,” her classmates’ judgment, and the cruel humor of adult interactions each contribute to a quiet disillusionment. Yet rather than cynicism, what emerges is a deeper, more deliberate kind of belief—a faith in her own capacity to endure, connect, and find meaning.
The evolution from magical thinking to self-awareness mirrors the universal shift from depending on external validation to cultivating inner resilience. Elyse’s final reflections suggest that reclaiming belief after it has been lost is an act of maturity.
It is no longer about trusting that the world will protect her but about trusting that she can navigate its unpredictability. In this way, innocence is not destroyed but transformed into wisdom—the kind that holds tenderness and self-knowledge in equal measure.