Even through this book contained the obvious sad part of Sam being dead, it was cute and made it better. I always love a book with magic realism so was especially happy to be able to get to read this book and enjoy it myself for all it is.

This book is a really touching story and personally touched the heart of my own. Even through Sam died, Julie is given a second chance to say goodbye. Which makes it a really heartwarming story.

If you didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to a loved one or if you did but not the way you wanted, this book is for you!!

This was such a sad, sweet little book. I finished it in one quick sitting and was impressed - it’s definitely a book I want to add to my classroom library, because I think my students would love it.

💬You’ve Reached Sam 💬 by Dustin Thao opens with a punch. There’s barely any backstory before we find out the narrator Julie’s boyfriend, Sam, has died in a car accident during their senior year. In her grief, she calls his phone - and he picks up.

The writing of the book feels like a movie in a unique way. It’s quick cuts of flashbacks and scenes, fast pacing and no filler. Though I thought the story was prettt predictable, its emotional payoff felt real and honest and so I didn’t even mind. Julie and Sam’s relationship is built so beautifully through the whole thing.

Grateful to @netgalley for the e-ARC - check it out when it comes out on November 2!

If I had to describe You’ve Reached Sam in one word, it’s this: bittersweet. Told through a series of flashbacks and present day, You’ve Reached Sam follows seventeen-year-old Julie shortly after her boyfriend Sam passes away. Heartbroken, Julie tries to cope with his death as best she can — by throwing out all his things, skipping out his funeral, and trying to forget everything tragic about him. But when Julie decides to call Sam one more time, just to listen to his funeral, the most unexpected thing happens: he picks up the phone. Now, with a second chance of goodbye, Julie’s tethered to Sam — and her phone — even more than before.

I really enjoyed the way the timeline would skip around, from past memories to the present, although I’ll also say that the memory montage hit a lot differently the second time around. I noticed several parallel moments, and broken promises that hurt even more. After someone dies, I think it’s only natural to think about all the moments you could’ve shared that you didn’t get to, or all the promises that you made to one another. The first time I read You’ve Reached Sam, I kept getting distracted by the memory jumps, although that might have to do with ARC formatting, rather than the actual novel.

One of my favorite things about You’ve Reached Sam is how it depicts grief. Grief is this messy, ever changing thing. There’s no one way to grieve properly, and the grieving process looks different for each person. Some might withdraw completely, some people might not be ready to talk about that person for a while, some people might crave company — there are so many different ways to grieve, and all of them are valid. I loved Thao’s depiction of grief, and how each character grieved in their own way. In the beginning, Julie deals with grief by compartmentalizing, and self-isolating from her loved ones. She stops replying to texts from Mika, Sam’s cousin and one of her best friends, stops having dinner with her mother, and forgets about her responsibilities. While I appreciated that her friends stood up for Julie when she’s publicly confronted about how she’s coping with Sam’s passing, I also appreciated that they were willing to call her out on her behavior. Julie wasn’t the only person who had lost Sam, and she wasn’t there to support everyone else when they needed her.

As characters, Julie’s character development was one that I kept rooting for, although was a little let down by. I’ll be the first to say that the ending was unsatisfying, but not because of Sam. I wanted to know more about Julie’s life after she had properly moved on from Sam, and wanted to know what that was like for her. On the other hand, Sam felt too perfect. He was sugar, spice, and everything nice, and I wish he had felt a little more real. Still, I couldn’t help but fall for them as a couple, and felt my heartbreak along with the two of them.

As someone from Seattle, I loved reading about the town that Julie and Sam lived in, as well as the characters’ Seattle adventures. I found the side characters so charming, especially Mika, Oliver, and Mr. Lee. However, I wish there was more depth about Sam and Julie’s identities as Asian Americans and how that shaped their relationship, as well as their relationship with the Asian Student Club.

You’ve Reached Sam kept reminding me of Kimi no Na Wa (You're Name), Studio Ghibli, and other Asian films I grew up watching. While some things are never quite explained — particularly the rules around the phone calls, or how that entire system worked, I wasn’t bothered by it. It’s part of the magic and charm.

Overall, You’ve Reached Sam is a story about moving on after a tragedy. It’s equal parts heartbreaking and beautiful, stringing you alongside Julie as she learns how to heal, find herself and find joy in her life. While I have some minor grievances with it, it also left me in tears, and I don’t think I could give it anything less than 4.5 or 5 stars — simply because of how it made me feel.

I have NEVER cried this much from reading a book. You’ve Reached Sam is a beautifully written, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and realistic book about the death of Julie’s boyfriend, Sam and her journey towards healing and acceptance.

I was very happy to be able to read an ARC of it because I was absolutely intrigued after reading the synopsis. I went into the book not knowing what to expect. Very quickly, I found myself completely immersed into this story - it didn’t feel like I was reading anymore. It was like watching a movie or even living inside of the story. Every time I picked up the book, I was whisked back into Julie’s world, Julie’s emotions, Julie’s heartbreak.

Julie starts off as a really bad friend. She goes through cycles of avoiding her friends, feeling guilt for Sam’s death, and detachment from the world and relationships around her. Although some may find this part repetitive, I did not. It was a realistic look into the life of a grieving person trying to make sense of the world and how to move on in life without the person they used to spend the most time with and the person they made plans with to spend the rest of their life with. It was especially heartbreaking for me as I imagined being in Julie’s shoes with my boyfriend.

This was a very character-driven story. There is not a whole lot going on plot-wise but so much goes on in terms of Julie and her emotions. It was like following along her grief journey and even living it in her shoes to some extent. The fact that she could talk to her dead boyfriend was obviously magic realism. There are no explanations, and some of the attempted explanations don’t fully make sense but for me, that was completely okay. We don’t know where Sam was, why he could talk to Julie, or how he knew he had to go soon but it was okay - it felt like we weren’t supposed to understand those things since they are literally out of this life.

Throughout the book, there were some flashbacks of when Sam and Julie were together and just seeing what their dynamic was like which also allowed me to feel the loss of Sam even more. They both seemed to really get along well and love each other. While there are no perfect relationships in life, Julie’s grieving mind goes to all the positive moments between her and Sam. It is evident early on that Julie didn’t get along well with Sam’s friends because they felt that she took him away from them. Sam loved Julie so much that he sacrificed time with friends for time with Julie. Although this is not a sign of a super healthy relationship, we need to keep in mind that Julie and Sam are high school students.

Their behaviours were indicative of deep, young love. They hung out all the time, talked about their futures together, Sam’s mom even regularly packed lunch for Julie. I really felt Julie’s loss throughout the book and even more so when she had to say goodbye to Sam for the last time. That part wrecked me up so badly. There was this one line that really did it for me and released the floodgates. I’m not going to mention it here because I don’t want to spoil too much but I would love to talk about it if you ever read this book and want to reach out.

Overall, it was good to see Julie slowly reconnect with family, friends, and find a renewed purpose. Sam helped with that but she also slowly began to recover as her phone calls with Sam became more and more sparse due to their static connection. She gained more confidence and made new friends along the way.

The ending was oh so bittersweet. Yes, it felt kind of sudden. Yes, I wanted more. Yes, I know many readers would have enjoyed another ending. But I loved the way Dustin Thao ended this book. Just like in reality, grief takes a long time to recover from - it’s a slow process. If you’ve ever lost someone that meant a lot to you, you’ll know that you never really ever forget them. Just like grief and moving on in real life, one day you realize you just have to move on. It isn’t always something that comes naturally; it is something that you must decide to do. This was all illustrated so well in this book.

Although after finishing the book, I felt such deep sorrow and felt I needed some type to really mourn Sam, mourn the situation, this book also showed me the importance of friends, family, and hope. Hope that you can carry on and that no matter how faint it seems, it is there.

Full review of this book will be posted on my blog in September.
https://andreasbookcorner.wordpress.com/

A big thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest and fair review.

This review is based on an ARC copy. Spoilers.

This book had an interesting concept and was unique in its approach to grief. I definitely can relate to wanting to talk with someone who has passed just one more time, so this novel took that premise and ran with it. I like how in the end everyone still learns how to move on and move forward.

Make sure you have tissues on hand for this one, because there are tear-jerking moments all throughout this book.

You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao is a heartbreaking #ownvoices read (but in a good way). It is a romance, but more of a Hallmark-type feel versus a bodice ripper one. Julie, the main character, has just lost her boyfriend Sam and is in the process of dealing with her grief. It is a story about love and loss, and how the ones left behind are the most affected after death. I think it’s a very timely read, considering how many people have experienced loss in the last year alone due to COVID. It was emotional to experience how the different characters of different ages and with different relationships to Sam coped with the loss. While reading, I couldn’t help but imagine, what would I do with the chance if I was given the opportunity to say goodbye to someone I’d lost? I can’t really say much more than this without spoilers, but just trust me when I say that you NEED to read this book. You won’t be disappointed!

Overall, a stellar debut novel by Dustin Thao. I’m ecstatic to read what else he releases in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for allowing me to read an early copy of You've Reached Sam at no cost to myself.

Amazing book. After taking a few hours to progress it, this is definitely a five star read. Whether or not you're a fan of YA, this book will touch you in so many ways. In addition, while the theme of the book is grief, it shows that grief can have many memorable, warm moments with loved ones. It also shows the different ways people can grieve, which was refreshing to see as grief is always usually represented in 1 day. I also think it did a good job showing how weird it is to move on and continue on with the world and be happy when someone you loved has died, but also how absolutely necessary it is in order to live your life. I could write a whole essay dissecting this book, but it would be filled with spoilers and this is a book you should go into knowing as little as possible to get the full experience. I read it in 1 sitting because I could not put it down. I cannot wait to get the physical book.

This book wasn’t what I expected, both in good ways and bad, if I’m honest more disappointing than bad. It was a book that I expected to break me, but aside from the beginning and the very ending I couldn’t find myself very invested, especially in Sam. (We’ll get to that in a second). I still definitely think this book is worth a read, for a debut, this has some of the most beautiful writing that I have ever had the pleasure to read, every sentence of this was just gorgeous, and I adored so many of my side characters. (Tristan, Mr. Lee and Mika, the loml’s). The dialogue was excellently done and I could literally feel the raw emotion packed into ever sentence and conversation. The transitional scenes and some of the flashbacks were heartbreaking , and I loved seeing some of the moment with how Julie and Sam’s relationship blossomed. The exploration of grief and how it affects the self and then our perceptions of others grief was also really interesting and I think that if I was more attached to Julie or Sam it would’ve been incredible.

Now, sadly, like I said before, I didn’t really care for Sam’s character, I understood completely why Julie loved him and the flashbacks with them were filled with so much love, but the present-day Sam (the one we got in the calls) honestly felt a little disconnected, none of their conversations were what I expected, and I am so, so sad we didn’t get a hint of what was in the ones he had with the people aside from Julie. Also maybe I’m just not an observant reader BUT WHAT WAS ACTUALLY GOING ON WITH THE PHONE CALLS I’M CONFUSED. I thought it was like a metaphor for something or just a coping mechanism for Julie, but it wasn’t. Also I felt as if Julie had an incomplete emotional arc like I didn’t expect her to get over her grief, but I felt as if part of it was about her being more pro-active, which she wasn’t, but she did begin to reconnect with those that she had left alone after Sam’s death. Her actions confused me 90% of the time, but I’ll forgive it just because that ending is so good. I’m mixed about the character work in this book, which isn’t great for a story that is completely character driven but the last 5% of the book honestly saved it, and some of the quotes from that are just beautiful, especially Sam’s final goodbye to her.

Hm. Okay.

The synopsis sounded like it was promising a heart-wrenching sobfest that would leave me wrecked and in tears. It didn’t.

Sure, it was sad. It made me feel emotions. But they weren’t very strong emotions. I wanted a screaming-and-crying heartbreak type of thing, and what I got was me staring at my tablet thinking “well that was sad”, frowning out the window for a few minutes, and then continuing like nothing had happened.

The plot was pretty good. After her boyfriend Sam dies in a car crash, Julie doesn’t know how to cope with her loss. In desperation, she calls Sam’s phone. And Sam picks up. Their connection is temporary, but Sam assures her that it won’t end until she agrees to say goodbye for the final time.

For me, it felt a little bit repetitive. The plot was Julie’s flashbacks about their romance, her conversations with Sam, and how the people around her were reacting to Sam’s death. There didn’t feel like there was a lot of direction except for their “final call” deadline. It just didn’t feel like there was enough happening to fill the book.

I wasn’t bored, exactly. It’s just that there could have been more that happened in this amount of pages. For example, in the beginning when Julie is running around (or something like that) - was it really necessary? I was questioning what happened when Julie ran to the cemetery and then back home again.

It’s an accurate portrayal of grief to feel emotions that make you desperate for something, or make you do things that don’t seem rational, but I don’t know how much of that was really significant. There’s a balance between showing Julie’s emotions to contribute to the plot and showing Julie’s emotions as something that takes up space in the book.

The grief representation was overall done pretty well, but some of it didn’t feel right to me. I know that everyone grieves differently, but that was actually one of the problems - it felt like all of the other characters were grieving in the same way, and Julie was the only one feeling different.

Julie handled her shock and grief by giving away all of Sam’s things and staying inside on her own, skipping his funeral, etc. She basically locked herself away from everyone and everything in order to cope. And then everyone else got mad at her for not being with them and “not caring about Sam.”

She was asked things like “Do you know how alone I was? Do you know how much I needed you? Why didn’t you go to the funeral, don’t you care?” by all the other characters - so she was basically guilt-tripped about the way she grieved. Which is...wonderful. It’s not like it’s incredibly fucking hard to face your grief and acknowledge a death.

This wasn’t anything wrong with the book itself, it just didn’t feel right to me as someone who still has trouble dealing with grief. It didn’t sit right when Julie had to apologize to everyone for not being there for them, when it’s perfectly valid to need some time to yourself to figure things out and cope.

The romance felt a little bit cliché, but it was pretty nice. Julie and Sam were a nice couple. I can’t say I shipped them, but the romance was the core of the plot and it did work, so it was good. The execution was done well (again, kinda the same thing as any other romance, but still).

The plot...honestly could have been done better, in my opinion. There were so many questions that could have been answered. I loved the idea of the storyline, but it left a lot to be desired. I had a lot of questions. Actually, they were questions stated in the book that were never answered.

Why do Sam and Julie have a limited number of calls? Sam says they’ll be able to talk until julie is ready to say good-bye, but then their calls start running out. That doesn’t seem like waiting.

Why can’t Julie share the phone calls with someone else? All Sam says is that their connection might be disrupted, but how can neither of them know for sure? What was the reason for this?

How does Sam even know what’s happening? He just says stuff like “I feel like” or “something tells me” whenever Julie asks him questions. He’s supposed to be alone somewhere, since whenever Julie asks him what he sees, he’s never in an inhabited place. So how does he know what’s going on with the whole phone calls thing?

I feel like this book was trying to use the “no one knows what’s beyond death” thing to its advantage by not providing concrete answers, but it didn’t work for me.

The characters were all great, but there wasn’t a lot of layering or development. They were pretty flat.

Julie didn’t really seem to change throughout the story. While it’s true that character development isn’t entirely necessary and can be a lot to ask sometimes, it felt disingenuous with the book’s storyline being about closure and having the main character pretty much not change at all. Over the whole plot, Julie’s perspective didn’t really seem to develop and she didn’t really “learn” anything, which doesn’t go with the whole “learning to let go” plot that the book was supposed to focus on.

I did like Mika though. She was definitely my favorite out of the characters (not saying a lot, but still).

Wow. This is a short review by my standards. Maybe it’s because I don’t remember a lot of the book.

Overall, I was expecting this book to be a lot stronger. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. There were some parts that I liked and some that I didn’t see the point of reading. This book was trying to be emotional and hard-hitting, but it wasn’t working for me.

I was not able to finish this book. It seemed very repetitive in the beginning. It was also eerily similar to a subplot of the last "To all the boys I have loved before" aside from the death part. I did not care for this book.

Wow. What a beautiful book. It’s actually very rare for me to get attached to many characters if I hadn’t already read the books previously. But what a wonderful way Dustin Thao has written these characters and brought them to life on page. One of the biggest fears in life I think for anyone would be falling in love with someone so deeply even if it was for the first time and then having them taken away from you immediately. I don’t think any amount of love can bring back the one you fell for.

Dustin Thao is and incredible writer for I felt every emotion in this heartbreakingly haunting book. It’s the definition of pain. Thao managed to capture several emotions and trigger several emotions out of me in such a short amount of space and I loved it. I think julies character was flawed and realistically beautiful. Loosing someone you love so much can easily make you detached from the world, Do I agree with everything she did? No. But I think Dustin Thao captures the essence of love and loss perfectly. Julie loosing Sam was devastating and im glad the author didn’t brush over it and sugar coat it.

Overall excellent book. I adored it. I’m not really one to pick up heavy emotional reads because they don’t do much for me but this one is incredible and all credit goes to Dustin Thao for writing such a phenomenal book.

I was lucky enough to get receive an e-Arc of "You've Reached Sam," a highly anticipated YA novel that's set to debut in November. It's been months since I've devoured it in one sitting, but the poignancy of the heartache I felt while reading it still lingers, which says a lot about the book in my opinion :)

Dustin Thao does a remarkable job of weaving two timelines to capture the depth and purity of the love shared between Sam and Julie, thus making the impact of Sam's sudden death a lot harder. From their meet-cute to the time in their golden field, Thao tells a story weaving not only beautiful imagery of memories and settings but captures emotions in such a raw and fresh way. You're transported to the fields of golden wheat, the sidewalks under the cherry blossoms, and then to the tragic night when it all happened.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It explores the trauma of sudden loss through the messiness of Julie's journey throughout it. You can't help but get frustrated at her lack of emotional maturity at times, but I think that further demonstrates Thao's applaudable ability to show how a 17-year-old human would respond in such circumstances. Julie and Sam had their entire lives planned out, but what they didn't have planned was one to leave the other. Fear not, reader. This book ends on hope that even through devastation of loss, there's light to always be found. I'll definitely be pre-ordering and recommending friends to do so!

This is a solid 3.5 stars for me. The book was good! Thao definitely conveyed grief and pain in such lovely ways, especially how it can affect a person and how everyone deals with grief differently. I loved the imagery and all the Your Name vibes--it was all so beautiful to read. I truly felt like I was watching an animation of the book in my head. I, however, wish that there was more depth about Sam's Asian American identity and how that shaped him and Julie's relationship. I was off-put by some of the comments about the Asian Student Club and wish the author chose to explore that aspect more. Overall, this was a good book and the ending did hurt!

This book, sadly, did not work for me. From the get go, I found the writing to be average at best, and far too disjointed. The emotional impact of the content was also mellowed due to a lack of connection with the protagonist. I had somewhat high hopes for this, and I ultimately feel let down.

Received a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

This book held my heart from beginning to end. Truly bittersweet.

What if you got the chance to say good bye to someone... after they’ve died? Julie has her entire future planned out, from getting accepted into her dream college, to writing a book, to moving into a place with her boyfriend Sam... but it all comes crumbling down when Sam dies in an accident... an accident that Julie blames herself for. Now she can’t seem to function. She struggles between trying to forget him to trying to just function when everything reminds her of him. But one day she calls Sam’s phone.... and he picks up. Even after he’s died, he is somehow now able to talk to her through the phone. Sam tells her that he will talk to her until she is ready to say goodbye. This is their second chance at goodbye. This was a gorgeous story about lost love, grieving, and moving on. It was a sweet and sad story and you could feel the pain that Julie goes through as she struggles to accept her new reality without the person she thought would be her future. It shows how grieving is different for everyone and how everything takes time and that you are not as alone as you think. Filled with friendship, warmth, and a bit of magic this was a wonderful read for me! I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a bittersweet yet amazing read filled with love, friendship, acceptance, and how life moves on.

*Thanks Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Great premise but so much repetition. The characters keep saying the same thing over and over, and it feels like nothing's happening. No real escalation. I personally couldn't stay engaged. DNF.

Thank you Wednesday Books for the access to this book on Netgalley!
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This is one the saddest and heartfelt books I have read so far this year. A story of grief, moving on, and healing, all bound into this well done standalone.
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I loved how the atmosphere was kept melancholic throughout the story that gives it so much emotional weight that will be hard to forget. It is very touching to see how the characters all have so much love for Sam all on their own ways as they all try to move on and reach gradual healing; trying their hardest to give themselves forgiveness from the inevitable.
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But there is one character that just did not work well for me. They have been guilt trippy towards the main character when they both are just grieving the same. I was hoping for a consequence of actions towards how that certain character behaved but I was let down.
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I hope this book serves as a reminder to everyone who will read that you don't have the rights to tell someone how to grieve; to let people heal at their own timing and pacing. We all have different ways to cope and we should respect and understand that.
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I highly recommend for this book if you want a really touching and uniquely told story that deals with the topics of grieving and moving on!

<i>Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Unfortunately, <i>You've Reached Sam</i> was a complete disappointment for me. 2 stars, maybe 1.5 stars. I'm honestly not entirely sure why this book didn't work for me. YA contemporary is my favorite genre and I especially love books that deal with difficult emotions such as grief. The writing certainly wasn't bad--it felt like a very typical YA style--but I just could not for the life of me get into the plot or feel connected to the characters. It took me about a month or two to finish this book, when I usually blow through YA contemporaries in a day or two. Again, I'm not sure exactly why I found this book so utterly boring, but I really struggled with it and I really never reached a moment where I was finally hooked. The characters weren't interesting to me either.

I came here to be sad, and all I got was a hearty helping of boredom.

The very last scene kind of made me think "oh, that might be sad" but other than that, <i>You've Reached Sam</i> did not work for me. HOWEVER, I do feel like a movie adaption would work really well! Perhaps that means it was a pacing and detail problem that made this book drag.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of You've Reached Sam. I was intrigued by the premise of this book and was fully prepared to feel all the feelings, but it missed the mark a little for me. I did like that the book dealt with the wide variety of ways people grieve. There are some poignant moments for sure, but I felt as a reader that I lacked a connection to Sam and Julie as a couple, which reduced the emotional fallout a bit. I do think many of students will enjoy this one!