"You've Reached Sam" is a YA contemporary debut by author Dustin Thao that explores the expressions of grief so profoundly and beautifully.
This story follows Julie after the loss of her boyfriend and best friend, Sam. After his tragic loss, Julie begins to detach herself from every facet of her life until she is given one more chance to say good bye.
This novel explored grief from multiple avenues and perspectives and I loved that Thao showed how grief impacted others in Sam's life. Sam was such an impactful character even if readers were not to get to know him first-hand, but more so through recounts of his life from the perspectives of different characters.
Thao's writing is so beautiful and descriptive throughout the entire length of the novel and this book absolutely had my heart hurting!
This novel was a beautiful exploration of grief and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will continue to read more works put out by this author.

W O W

I never knew I could enjoy breaking my own heart so much and yet!!!! This book is a love letter to connections, especially those that help shape the way we live and see ourselves. Missing someone dear to your heart, not being capable of letting go, keeping things close to the vest for fear of hurting others or having them hurt you... it's all done so beautifully in YOU'VE REACHED SAM. A perfect read for anyone looking to remind themselves that excellent writing means conveying emotion in palpable ways. I simply adored it.

I'm not going to go on and on with this review, it can be summed up with a few short effective words.

Beautiful prose, beautiful deliverance, beautifully emotionally brutal.

Well worth a read, I would recommend without hesitation.

Did I just cry until morning over a book? The answer is YES. Holy grail! This book is deeply beautiful with hidden messages every chapters. The characters I follow through, specially Sam, is a perfection. I don't know why Dustin Thao wants to hurt but he just did. You've Reached Sam tackles problems on moving on and acceptance. The love and honesty it shows just grab my heart. I love how the story imagine being able to talk to the love of your life who passed away, and gave messages that cannot be communicated anymore. God! This book is my favorite.

*Bo Burnham voice* I just thought to myself, "Oh this is gonna be sad". And it was. I'm a genius.

To be honest, though, it was just alright. I thought this was going to be a massive heartbreaker and resonate with me in some way, but overall I was disappointed at how basic it was. There isn't much more to the plot than the synopsis - girl talks to her dead boyfriend over the phone and misses him. What the synopsis doesn't mention are the one-dimensional mean side characters who constantly blame said girl for her boyfriend's death, and the way said girl neglects every single relationship in her life as she mourns her loss, which makes her generally irritating. The fact that Julie is so self-absorbed that she consistently stands up her friends, ignores her family, basically bails on her date and doesn't seem to care about anyone but the voice on the other line makes it hard to sympathize with her.

Furthermore, there is no explanation for this supernatural connection, and zero consequences for her sharing it with other people, nor is there an explanation of why it had a time limit and what exactly broke the connection in the end. Neither of them had moved on, was the afterlife following their school calendar?

This had a lot of potential and unfortunately just didn't hit the mark for me.

***Thank You NetGalley for the Arc***

This is one of my favorite books of this year and it hasn't even released yet. I love the cover, but I loved more of what was inside that. It has been a while since I read a young adult that deals with grief/death/loss in such a profound way. The concept is so creative and almost seems inspired by the actual "wind phone booth" from Japan. Where you can send messages to the deceased.

Julie broke my heart in this book. I know many won't like her as much, but before judging her character so harshly and using the excuse that grief is different for everyone(which it is), you have to understand that it was more than that. Yes, we will see her deal with Sam's death, but we see her become a new person. Someone she was struggling to be. There was a reason behind her decisions, even if they frustrated me sometimes. There is a point in the story you will realize why Julie is portrayed the way she is. It is refreshing in a sense.

The last 100 pages or so were just magical. They really got my tears rolling. It was beautiful and Sam, as a character was just so endearing that you felt that loss too. When it releases, definitely check this one out! You won't be dissappointed.

I personally found it a bit boring and I can't really see where all the hype came from. The idea of the book is great, but development and the main character, who I didn't like one bit, not so much. I guess it wasn't for me.

One of my most anticipated b0oks of the year did not let me down. Be aware of possible content warnings for sensitive topics, but know this book is simply stunning!

So many of us would have liked a chance to say goodbye to a loved one who left us way too soon. Julie gets that chance. She was torn apart when Sam died before she could say goodbye. She phones him to hear his voicemail but he picks up! Here is her chance. A real gut wrenching story, will bring out many tears and renewed grief.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The rage I feel, having wasted two days reading this abysmal, fake-grief, pretense of a love story is so red-hot that it may consume this page before I finish writing my review.

The story idea is simple: a grieving girlfriend discovers that she can talk by cell phone to her boyfriend after he dies. If you’ve ever lost a loved one, you’ve probably thought of, dreamed of, pleaded with your god for the opportunity to share one last conversation. Why couldn’t I have gotten to read THAT story?

Instead, I had to read You’ve Reached Sam, a story whose pacing, writing, and character development are so amateurish that it may have been written by a somewhat immature ten year old with the help of his mom’s thesaurus and some garage sale Trixie Belden books. By the way, that immature ten year old wrote this dreadful book in first person even though he has no idea, apparently, how women of any age think, speak, or feel.

Also, the grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors are distracting. (Yes, I know I’m reading an uncorrected proof but it’s not like this was typeset from a hand-written copy. This isn’t the 1900s, folks. I have to assume that the author turned in a manuscript full of errors.)

The MC, Julie, is profoundly unlikable. She is grieving not because Sam died but because SHE lost HER boyfriend. Julie is whiny and self-centered and carries around such a big ole bag of “woe is me” that she doesn’t have any room in it for empathy or true grief. She’s cruel to her grieving friend, mean to her mom, and even unkind to her dead boyfriend and his entire family. She literally thinks to herself that she needs to call Sam because he’ll understand how difficult her day has been. Seriously. She calls her dead boyfriend to complain about her school day. Could she be any more shallow? No, no, she could not.

No one would believe that Sam and Julie are in love from their brief, banal conversations. Where is the pining? Where is the heart-wrenching good-bye, that conversation that makes you cry, even as you realize that Julie is going to be okay and that Sam is ready for whatever comes next? Instead, they talk in cliches like disinterested neighbors who occasionally see each other in the shampoo aisle of their local grocery store.

Let’s just ignore that we will never get a clear explanation as to why she can call (but not text) Sam. I have other questions of equal importance. Why can Sam “feel” that there are problems with his family (and what’s the point of having this in the book)? And why is Sam the only one who can help them? What is going to happen to his family when he can’t call Julie anymore to get them out of trouble?

Why does Julie run around town looking for Sam when she knows that he’s dead? Why does she have a glowing selenite crystal? Also, how many flat secondary characters -- Mika, Yuki, Taylor, James, Oliver, Jay, Rachel, Liam, Julie’s mom -- are too many to include in a story? (The answer is the endless number that the author added to this book; all of his secondary characters are as flat as Stanley himself.) What does it all mean? Why should we care?

There’s a lengthy -- and I do mean lengthy -- prologue that, I guess, is supposed to make us like Sam and Julie so much that we’re grieving for them too but it’s a hot mess of clunky writing that attempts to blend memories into something like a camera fade in a movie. Major fail. It’s hard to follow and is so deeply one-sided that all we know at the end is that Julie sure does like herself but maybe doesn’t like her boyfriend that much.

The author includes page after page, scene after scene, of Julie wandering, frequently in the rain, sometimes as darkness falls, sometimes because she has to get away from whatever cliched pressures the author decided that Julie is supposed to feel, pressures, by the way, that are so tired and overused that they’re cringy and boring, almost as cringy and boring (and manipulative) as THE voicemail. (If you read the book, you’ll know what voicemail I mean.)

Finally, I hate … nope, despise is a better word … that the author aims his intellectual snobbery at community colleges, as though attending a CC is some sort of punishment that Julie has to endure because she didn’t get accepted to the school of her choice. What a terribly disrespectful thing to do. Community college is not a punishment but reading this book certainly was.

Pass on this book, folks. There are so many others much more worthy of your time.

I received a NetGalley digital ARC in exchange for my honest review. (less)

The premise of this book is pretty straightforward. Julie is a senior whose boyfriend Sam suddenly dies and this book tells the aftermath of this tragic event and how Julie deals with everything. But there's a twist: in a moment of sadness Julie calls Sam's phone just to hear his voice through the voicemail, but instead Sam picks up the phone and she gets the chance to talk to him and in a way she also gets him back.

I was immediately intrigued by the magical realism aspect of this novel and I was very curious to see how the author was going to use it to explore the grief and the healing process that Julie is going through. Even though I did appreciate the message that this element of the story was trying to convey, I wanted it to dig deeper. There were some moments where I felt like the plot was dealt with only on surface-level and I found myself hoping for something more.

Still, it's a solid novel about second chances and how to cope after a tragedy and I do recommend it. In the end it just didn't work for me and it did not have the impact I was hoping. However, I'm very curious to read more by Dustin Thao and I'll definitely check out his future works.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

To say I loved this book is an understatement. I knew when I read what the book was about that I had to read it. And boy am I glad I requested an ARC so I can read it months early.

Julie and Sam are enjoying their senior year of high school as a couple. They are making plans for college when Sam dies unexpectedly. Julie is devastated and feels that she can't move on with her life without Sam, until she decides to call him and he answers his phone.

Over the course of the book Sam needs Julie to move on and accept that Sam isn't coming back. She discovers new friends, potential new relationships, and reconnects with people who she lost contact with while dealing with her grief.

Julies ability to speak to Sam one last time is a dream that anyone wishes they could have. The story is super sweet but also a tear jerker. I loved every minute of it.

rating: 3.5★

well. this is a sad book.

it turned out to be harder than i’d expected to write a review for this one as the most coherent i’ve been since i finished this book a few days ago is: ?..!$)&/“?. but a review is finally due.

‘you’ve reached sam’ is a quiet, thunderous exploration of grief and loss and acceptance and so much more.

to start with things i liked, the first and last 20% or so of this book hit a spot for me. i think those parts of the whole novel is where i’ve connected to the story more than the rest. those two beginnings of different ends are what solicited a deeper emotion within me than the rest of the book, and for many reasons.

the heart of it all is, obviously, the story of the main relationship here—sam and julie. at the very beginning, i immediately get the feels of grief and loss and got emotional a couple of times in the first few chapters where we’re just getting introduced to the cast and all. it honestly felt like a 4.5-star book at the very least… until it swerved off that path a little bit.

i’m the biggest fanatic of and all for depressing character-driven stories with almost unmoving plot and nothing going on except: feelings. i adore exploring feelings in fiction novels—especially grief—and some of my favorite books lie in that area so vividly. so having this book, pitched as “‘your name.’ meets ‘if i stay’” with a sprinkle of magical realism to top it all off? it was a dream in the form of a book for me.

sadly, the more i read, the more the narrative got repetitive. narrow-sighted. maybe even unnecessary. our main character and only pov, julie, as well as the story itself, were slowly but surely becoming a little less—impactful? realistic? interesting?—than what it all started out to be. to add to that: though i don’t necessarily agree with how julie grieved for sam and the things she did and didn’t do while coping with losing him—her significant other, closest best friend and only true companion—i can never judge how a person grieves for another’s loss, fictional or not. so even though i understood, i had to grind my teeth a lot while reading the conscious decisions being made, not only by julie but some of the other characters as well. it frustrated me to no ends.

<spoiler> there was a repetitive arc where some of sam’s friends at school decided to start an “asian student club” after his passing and i won’t get into spoilers, even mild, but if you’ve read the book and want to chat about it, please reach out. i’m not sure how i feel about that whole part of the story. just to be clear: i’m not asian. the author of this book is asian. so obviously i cannot speak over anything racial regarding this book, especially that i’ve seen no one talk about it, at least not explicitly. but yes, i guess it just felt weird to me. moving on. </spoiler>

for the most part, the huge chunk in the middle of the story felt like a repetitive filler that did nothing but make the story less and less realistic and believable in my eyes. it started to feel more and more surface-level. more and more like it’s shoving the memories, the flashbacks, the things the characters went through all in my face and almost dictating to me what to feel. and of course, the more and more i felt detached from the characters and the overall story the book was trying too hard to tell. the clichés here were intentional, and they barely worked. some made me roll my eyes, some swoon and most cry my eyes out.

but anyway, as i was nearly losing faith, the ending. made. me. sob. no spoilers of course but i was very anxious about a certain thing throughout the whole book that the ending made very clear and made me feel better about the whole thing. if it weren’t for the ending this book would’ve been closer to 2 stars. it was so heart-wrenching and served somewhat of a final resolution to the story. simply, beautifully tragic.

also—and i mention this last because i’ve read an uncorrected proof copy of this book but—there were so many unrealistic, contradictory things here and there throughout the book that were most likely the result of poor editing. little things that wouldn’t make sense because they didn’t align with other things in the story. i have to mention this because it took me out of the story way too many times for me to excuse the editing and definitely affected my reflections about the story. i hope by the time this book is released, these faults are straightened out.

even though it may seem like i loathed this book, (i didn’t, i promise!) the fact that it has done the rarity of bringing out some emotions out of me at a time when i needed it sure is something valuable. it is in no way forgettable, nor is it to be taken lightly even with its flaws. it’s a heavy book with characters that i could (sometimes) see myself in and relate to during their time of grief. yes, i wanted more from this book, but it may just be a personal preference as it is a highly personal book with all its heavy themes. i can imagine how some people would absolutely love it and some would despise it; it’s inevitable with every book, really. but maybe it set out to accomplish something else other than what i was looking for and it’d succeeded. what i do know is that, even though it’s not the best thing out there, i still think it’s a book worth reading.

‘you’ve reached sam’ is a beautiful tale full of melancholy, love, longing and friendship. it is full of life and death. it is full of remembrance and joy and depression. it is the art of holding on and that of learning to let go.

tw: death, depictions of grief, loss of loved one, car crash, self-blaming, depression, bullying, manipulation, mental abuse, racism.

— digital arc provided via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

There was a lot to love here, but also a few things that fell flat. I thought sam was wonderful, and so sweet, but Julie as a main character was really flat all the way around even in flashbacks. I didn’t really understand what it was that sam saw in her. I loved that her favorite song was fields of gold, that’s one of my favorites too and I loved when Sam took her to the field via phone. I just wished I loved Julie as much as he did.

I thought that this was a great exploration of grief, it did that super well. However I felt so confused by some of the conversations they would have on the phone. I feel like if I were talking to a love one who had just passed I would want to know more about where they were and how they were feeling, and we never really had Julie asking those questions. It was mostly very awkward. Unless he was sending her on a journey somewhere. Then I enjoyed their conversations.

I enjoyed the side characters, I felt like they were unique and had their own personalities and added very much to the story. I appreciated them being there.

As it got towards the end, I liked the story more and more. I ended up crying at the end. I think this was a good, solid read and a great way for teens to explore grief at this stage of life.
3.5 rounded up

I had seen people talk about this book on Twitter. It was supposed to make you cry but I didn't believe it for one second. When it's in the book description that you're going to deal with a character death, I prepare myself emotionally. And I did this time too. And oh my god, I was not prepared for what happened in this book at all. There were a lot of tears. I adored Sam and Julie and their young love and their young loss. The book was an emotional roller-coaster. I copied Julie's emotions. I will make all my friends who like to read sad-books read this book. It's a definite one of my favourites of this year so far.

This book was one of my most anticipated of this year but ended up being a big disappointment. I was so interested in the idea of Julie being able to communicate with Sam even though he had passed away but around the 14% mark, I could feel my interest waning. I really loved Sam and Julie in the prologue but nothing after that prologue really matched that feeling for me. Instead of feeling the fuzzies or the interest that pushed me to pick this one up, I found myself wondering when the book would be over (even though it was pretty short) and even skipping some parts until I got interested again because I knew I had already been reading it for a month and I wanted to break out of that slump.

I wish we could have seen more of Sam and Julie not fighting or right before he died and I think this could have helped keep my interest because these are the parts I truly loved. I also wish we had gotten less random snapshots of Julie's life and a more focused look at Sam and Julie, whether in the past or reconnecting. I just didn't get the same feeling I did when they were on the phone that I did when they were falling for each other and dating.

Another part that really got me down when reading this book was how negative Sam became towards the end of the book. He became so confrontational and not the Sam we originally came to know. When all was said and done, I actually disliked him and found myself not wanting to read about him calling..

Overall, an interesting and unique book but it was weighed down in daily activities and not so happy interactions between Sam and Julie, especially near the end.

I wanted to read this because I love a ghost story, romance, and YA. However for me this title was just meh. The protagonist, Julie, has had what appears to be a charmed life, but when the novel opens, that has all changed with the tragic death of her boyfriend, Sam. She is paralyzed by her grief and wanting to hear his voice, she calls Sam's cellphone expecting his voicemail- and Sam picks up. This is a really fun idea, with a lot of possibilities to explore - and I guess I felt like it wasn't explored well.. Friends and family notice that her grieving process kind of stops - because she no longer believes she's lost Sam - she just has him differently. She skips memorials, and by doing normal things, people see her as shallow and insincere in her loss. When she shares finally with someone that she's still in touch with Sam, his ghost is confirmed. Personally, I think it would have worked if the reader was left wondering if the conversations with Sam were real or just in Julie's mind. I don't intend this as a harsh review, I think the novel was fine, but it could have been better.

Rating 3

I'm on the fence about this book. There are things I loved and things I could have seriously gone without. From the synopsis the reader learns that this book is going to be filled with emotion. At least that's what I expected from reading that and in the first few chapters I could feel it. However, towards the middle I could no longer feel the emotion from the characters and was instead being told how they were feeling. I couldn't connect to the main character because she made odd decisions and overall was just blah. I understand people grieve in different ways but how she was written didn't help her character. The pacing was slow moving and the main character contemplated the same thing over and over. I did enjoy the interactions with the side characters however, there weren't too many of those. Honestly, I think I was let down mostly because I had such high expectations for this book. The cover is beautiful and the synopsis makes one think they are in for a heartbreaking story. Even though this book didn't do it for me I do think it will be enjoyed by others. Also, this book does a great job of showing how life will move on without you if you let it.

**Received an advanced copy through NetGalley in return for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **

Bland and boring. Interesting secondary characters left unexploited. An interesting premise that fell flat as I could not emotionally connect with the main characters. A rather slow story that take its time unfolding.

Disclaimer: I was given this copy in exchange for an honest review.

WOW - this book was everything I was hoping it would be ever since I hear Hailey from booktube talk about it!! This book is PERFECT for fans of Your Name and If I Stay. I cried while reading this book and it just left me in awe. Sam and Julie's story is so heartbreaking and beautiful and I absolutely loved them!! I'm very excited to read any of Dustin's future books.