A beautifully written YA debut. I really enjoyed this story and how emotional it was. Dustin Thao is definitely an author to watch now!

You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao is a young adult contemporary novel that shares the story of Julie, a high school senior, and her boyfriend Sam. The sad part of the story is that soon after reading the first chapters the reader realizes that Sam has died and Julie is left to cope with his death. Denial, anger, sadness --- all emotions that Julie experiences but then a surprising twist occurs when Julie is able to connect with Sam via her phone.

The story is an interesting concept -- what would life be like if we were all able to hang on to our dead loved ones with some kind of frequency after their death. Would it be healthy to continue those relationships or is it better to allow grief to occur and work through the stages?

The book was an interesting read and one that would appeal to younger audiences for sure but I found some of the plot a little slow probably because it centered mainly around Julie and her life. I enjoyed it but was not as engaged with it as some other readers have indicated .

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a free copy for my honest review of this novel.

Just to make it clear. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry my eyes out and be moved by a tale of grief, and since this was advertised as the new Your Name, one of my favourite films, this seemed perfect for me. But I think the problem lies with me.

I don’t think I’m a fan of melodramatic stories. I hated A Little Life, the book that makes everyone sad, and I don’t love the sad animes like Clannad or Anohana, because they try way too hard to make the audience cry. However, You’ve Reached Sam does a fantastic job at portraying grief and how it effects people differently, so I can’t say it’s a bad book. It’s not. It just didn’t resonate with me.

I think the main issue for me was that Sam was way too perfect. I know we’re seeing the novel through Julie’s eyes so she’s going to project an idealised version of him, but Sam didn’t feel like a real person because he felt too “manic pixie dream boy”.

Also, the rest of the characters were a bit bland. It was hard to connect at times because nothing happens much of the time. It took about 80% for the story to “get” anywhere, and by that point I was ready for the story to finish.

And that epilogue was way too short.

It didn’t work for me, but I’m emotionally constipated. The writing is good, so I would recommend giving it a chance.

As someone who doesn’t typically like contemporary or romance, this was like finding a diamond in the rough. I loved this book, and I would definitely buy a copy and read it all over again!

One of the best YA books I’ve read in a long time. Julie blames herself for her boyfriend’s accidental death and tries to cope by getting rid of everything that reminds her of him. Her grief is pretty raw, and she puts herself into some pretty risky situations. Then she discovers that she can call his cell phone – and he answers. Sam helps her (and some other friends) work through their grief and survivor’s guilt. The book is labeled for ages 12-18 but I think 12 is a little young for this. (Netgalley review)

okay. here's the thing. i was promised a romantic magical realism tearjerker that would turn me into a puddle of sobs, and that's what i got. it made me tear up right off the bat, and the emotional ending made me weep.

tragic love story between a heartbroken girl and her recently deceased boyfriend, whom she can still call on the phone? yes, of course i wanted this book to break my heart. (i actually waited to read this when my partner was around so i could get some much-needed comfort snuggles)

HOWEVER. despite the fact that it delivers on the crying front, you've reached sam is an extremely disappointing read.

🖤 here's what went wrong 🖤

‣ the writing is weak. it's all telling and no showing! the narration of our protagonist, julie, is ridiculously rambly and repetitious, which really takes away from the experience of grief that the reader is supposed to be empathizing with.

‣ for me, the book falls apart as soon as it becomes clear that all of the characters are flat. all of them. julie's friends and parents, sam's family, and the random bullies at school all feel like rough outlines of characters. none of them feel real. and even sam and julie themselves feel flat. i think sam is kind of a manic pixie dreamboy?? and again, this takes away from the emotional resonance of the story.

‣ we've got a whole lot of cheap cliches going on here. one-dimensional bullies who are mean for no realistic reason! dramatic fight with said bullies! closeted friend who we discover had a secret gay crush on sam! the trope of casually chatting with a mysterious stranger, only to find out they're a celebrity later on! julie's extreme guilt about sam's death (but for some reason that stops being a thing and is never resolved??)! thao had a lot of ideas, but they're all jumbled together, and none of it feels real.

🖤 but here are some things i did enjoy 🖤

‣ chapters about julie's current life and grief are interspersed with chapters of before, which show us romantic moments from julie and sam's relationship. some of these are cliche, but i'm a softie and i enjoyed them anyway. and these before sequences are very dreamlike and cinematic. i think this is when thao's writing is at its best, and i could definitely envision a movie version!

‣ we have a lot of asian rep! sam and his family are japanese-american, and many of julie's friends are asian, too. i especially enjoyed seeing multiple cultural perspectives on death and grief. sam's cousin, mika, talks about tradition and the need to honor those who have passed. it honestly would have been great if the book had delved deeper into this!!

‣ it's occasionally meta (aided by the fact that julie is a writer). for example, the conversation about why julie likes movies that make her cry. i think that's what thao was trying to do here: make us feel. and that passage got me primed for my cry sesh at the end of the book, which brings me to...

‣ the ending BROKE ME. (SPOILERS) julie spends most of the book in denial, holding onto sam and their love. but THE FACT THAT HE NEEDS HER TO ACTIVELY LET GO!! she has to ignore his final call in order to allow them both to move on!!! their goodbye is absolutely brutal. but the fact that he is able to leave her one last voicemail after they hang up!! he's able to give her a small piece of extra love and care for her to hold onto as she grieves!! maybe it's just because goodbye stuff hits a soft spot for me, but i fucking wept.

so. this book absolutely let me down, but it was still able to bring out the mushiest side of me. i love the themes of loss and letting go, and it's interesting to read something that takes place primarily within the denial stage of grief. terribly romantic and terribly sad. but it's disappointing that the story never really comes to life. it has such an intensely emotional premise, but much of it feels like a dream being narrated within julie's head.

if this book is on your list, my advice would be to read it, but lower your expectations first. i think thao has a lot of potential, and i hope his next book will have stronger execution!!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Perhaps this is a trope, the dead boyfriend YA stories? Sort of like the romance stories where a couple only pretends to be in love, is a trope

Whatever the premise, or the execution, I really didn't like Julie. Sheesh. I mean, yes, people dying, especially ones you love is hard to get over, but really? Not going to the funeral? Throwing all his stuff out? I mean I know she is only 17 but my gosh girl.

When I was in high school, my best friend's friend died in a car crash. The whole school was devastated, and my best friend was crushed. But you know what? She didn't go and hide, or anything, and the family started a scholarship in Leigh's name, for athletics, that is still around today.

What I am trying to say is that through this whole book, Julie talks to Sam, but she doens't progress. She keeps clinging to him, as though that would somehow bring him back. And her friends are trying to reengage her in the world, and she resists.

As one reviewer said, most of the book was padding.

We never learn why. We never never learn what.

And the author has cherry blossoms blooming in both the summer and the fricking fall. Not sure what is going on there.

If you are looking for a book to make you cry, this is not the one.



<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

Normally I don’t go for contemporary books but there was was just something about the cover that made me request this book.

I’ll admit I was a bit up and down with this one. One minute I was reaching for the tissues and the next I was cringing at a little to sweet fluff moment. but I think as a whole it works.it was different a nice break from what I usually read and definitely does the grieving process justice in my opinion.

You’ve reached Sam was heartfelt, emotional and very well written but I can’t specifically say that I loved it. It was good but not memorable enough. The characters weren’t memorable enough to have made a lasting impression. I was intrigued but it felt like that intrigue never gave way to anything more. There’s a certain repetition and stagnancy in the plot and pacing which kind of hinders the reading experience. I was never truly invested in the love story of the main characters due to which I think I was a little disappointed.

Overall, it was great in the way it portrayed grief and family and friendship, but other than that I found it quite disappointing.

You’ve Reached Sam is an emotional rollercoaster through grieving the loss of a loved one. I was approved to read the e-arc on Netgalley, and it’s incredible! The emotions were raw and heartfelt and made me cry numerous times in the process. This book emphasizes the importance of moving on while still remembering loved ones. One of my favorite quotes was “Letting go isn’t about forgetting. It’s balancing moving forward with life, and looking back from time to time, remembering the people in it.”

**Thank you NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book for review**

You reached Sam was an anticipated book for me. The synopsis sounded exactly like something that would get me right in my feels. Unfortunately it didn't really develop or flow as well as I had been hoping. I had a hard time connecting to any of the characters in this book, or with the grief that the main character was supposedly feeling. I definitely appreciated the idea and can see what was being attempted, but this one just wasn't it for me.

I am totally shocked that a book I expected to love, or at least like, barely rates the latter. Once again, the concept is better than the execution.

It's really hard to be invested in a tragedy, and in grief, when the main character is just.. unlikeable. Not because she's meant to be. But she just fails to be charming, sympathetic, consistent, or.. well.. likeable. I couldn't understand why this poor dead boy had loved her for so long or why people were so inclined to be so nice for her. I know, it sounds harsh, but I'm not being mean for fun. I'm truly baffled. I kid you not, there's a line in the book that says 'the empathy from being a writer' is what makes her connect to another person's pain. Pain she had been happy to ignore twice before; not to mention.. you don't need to be a writer to feel for other people? And she routinely would forget to do this all the time in light of her own feelings? So.. make it make sense?

Listen, everyone's grief journey is valid. I'm not saying she isn't allowed to throw away her boyfriend's things, delete any and all texts, voicemails, and photos, and literally purge his existence from her life.. all of which she does in the opening chapters. But she would also act surprised every time someone else was sad, or mentioned him, or was processing their own grief, and in between those bizarre realizations, she could be unfeeling, rude, oblivious, and just self-absorbed, all while being sadand processing her own grief. Eye twitch.

Despite this enduring connection to Sam after his death -- I mean this literally, he picks up the phone when she calls him, after he's died -- I never once understood the connection (I said it twice in one sentence on purpose because it was used someting like sixty times in this book and I swear I'll see the word "connection" on the back of my eyelids when I sleep tonight). We had numerous flashbacks to their early days, some bits in the middle, and honestly they were both pretty much bland potatoes. No character, really, had much of a personality which I mean sometimes does happen with the window dressing second characters but I didn't quite expect it from the romantic force driving the book, too.

Also, can we talk about the fact that this special connection.. wasn't so special after all? Like, I don't want to say more because spoilers but that.. I mean, why? How? Why? So many little things just don't line up or seem to make sense, really.

We'll just call this what it was : a flop. Between the uninspiring writing combined with the lack of emotional resonance, this is a story that has a mishmash of the most basic YA tropes, though not even done well, with the unique hook of having a magical phone that connects to a lost loved one, but fails to use said hook to do.. anything, really, except reel you in. Would not recommend.

1.5 stars

This book was interesting to me. I liked that I got to read about Julie's memories and how she was doing with the present day. The beginning grabbed my attention since I loved Sam. I thought he was the perfect guy. I wish the calls were explained more. The plot is slow and the MC is dealing with her grief which is accompanied with anger.

Thank you @wednesdaybooks and @netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review!

Full disclosure: I chose to put the book down at 80% and did not finish. These are my thoughts regarding the first 80%

When Julies boyfriend (Sam) dies all she wants is to hear him again so she calls his phone and to her shock, he picks up. The first 15-20% of You’ve Reached Sam were wrecking me. Between the book description and the prologue giving a quick snapshot of the origins of Sam and Julies relationship, I was prepared for this book to ruin my life. With the potential to explore the many ways we process grief, working through feelings of guilt, and moving past what if’s I thought it was going to rip my heart out of my chest and hand it to me. 
The components were there but It was hard to grasp what Julie was feeling.  There was so much happening with the potential to get deep and explore but as soon as something would build I felt like the story would pivot again. I was compelled to learn more about the other characters. Especially the introduction of Mika (Sam's cousin) and Oliver (Sam's best friend). This story is fully from Julie's perspective and we get to see a little of what other people are experiencing through her eyes. These moments are what drew me in but then I felt like they were left unexplored. A lot of little snapshots left me unfulfilled and I wonder what this story could have looked like through multiple POVs. 

Around 50% I was ready to throw in the towel. Although we are giving a montage of the start of Sam and Julies relationship their phone calls and additional flash backs didn’t draw me in, I felt like little happened besides laying out the rules of their call they really didn’t seem to discuss much, and felt then it began to feel repetitive. I was curious how the story would conclude but at 80% I felt I had read enough to form an informed and honest opinion and decided to DNF. 

Thank you @netgalley and @wednesdaybooks for an uncorrected digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. Dustin Thao did an amazing job with writing this book. You've reached Sam is a heart wrenching story that made you immediately connect with Julie. Everyone can relate to not being able to say goodbye to someone and the book really captured that.

You've Reached Sam is an ode to memories of a past love.

When Sam, Julie's boyfriend dies in a car accident, she throws out everything that reminds her of him; she misses his funeral and memorials because she can't deal with his death. All of this is thrown at the reader by the first chapter. It was something I liked about Thao's storytelling.

A problem I had with the writing, though, is that it cuts back and forth between Julie's memories and the present day, and in the beginning, it's very jarring. It takes a little time to really get into the story because of that. But what follows is Julie healing from his death, and Thao makes the piece memorable.

Once I got really into it, the book felt too short. It doesn't really give us a view into a "before" (even in the "before" chapters) which held me back from connecting with Julie and Sam's relationship. The memories we see are all a montage of an idealistic relationship, and because it was only these memories, it didn't make much of an impact.

I very much enjoyed the ending (though I'm annoyed that the calls weren't explained very well, but I digress!). I was surprised that this wasn't so much about the calls with Sam but the little moments in between them that were meant to guide Julie through it all.

This book plays out the ultimate fantasy of everyone who's lost someone: What if you could pick up the phone, and they could take your call? Julie's lost her boyfriend, Sam, and all their shared plans of getting an apartment together after their high school graduation. Now Julie's alone, drowning in an ocean of grief, until she calls Sam's phone.

Their relationship is shared through flashbacks, Julie's memories and her conversations with others about him. Sam seems pretty much perfect in Julie's mind, which is probably how anyone would feel about someone they're grieving.

Julie blames herself for the accident, and she's falling apart. Seriously, this girl does not know how to grieve in a healthy way! From skipping his funeral to shutting out all of her friends, she's a total wreck until her phone calls with Sam helps her find the strength to begin to move forward. It's a slow-burn storyline, but heartfelt and emotional.

This is a heavy book, but ends on a hopeful note. It has a lot of valuable insight into living your life when you're the one left behind.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the advance review copy of this book.

I found this a tough book to get through. The pace was quite slow and I struggled to stay engaged in the story. The idea that Julie and Sam could connect via a phone after Sam's death was actually very disturbing to me. I realize as an adult with possibly more life experience with death, could be the reason I felt this way, but I cringed every time they connected. Or maybe because I know that the ability to speak if only one more time to a loved one, is the biggest wish that can never come true. Or that every time you wake up and realize that the dream that death never came, was simply that, just a dream. I just found this whole element painful and uncomfortable.

For the right reader this may be engaging, there are elements that readers may find interesting such as how to deal with loss, young love and loss, supporting others through loss, wrestling with change, living in the moment, and finding the things that bring you joy. I am sure there are good conversations to be had with the ideas in this book, but it isn't one I will be recommending.

First I want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an arc.

I had such, such high hopes for this book. I thought (and hoped) it would be absolutely devastating, and that cover? Stunning. Unfortunately, the cover and the summary are the best part of the book. Literally nothing happens through the whole book, until the last few pages, which ended up feeling rushed, because none of the emotional conclusion felt earned or cathartic. The characters have the same conversations, over and over, with nothing changing. You can skip (and I did) several pages at a time without missing anything. I had such high hopes, but this just disappointed.

A sad, magical story about first love, second chances and learning to let go. A quieter read with the story focuses more on emotional growth from the phone calls between Julie and Sam rather than action/things happening to move the story forward.