This book wasn’t bad but was not what I wanted or expected. I was mostly bored throughout the reading experience. The characters didn’t feel realistic and I didn’t connect with them separately or as a couple. The writing felt basic and didn’t do anything to keep me interested. I might read the final version since I got such an early copy but overall this was pretty disappointing.

There is a lot I like about this book but there were also some things that I didn’t care for. This book is about loss. Seventeen year old Julie is struggling with the sudden death of her boyfriend, Sam. She is so consumed by grief that she shuts everyone and everything out.

Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail. And Sam picks up the phone. Sam tells her that their phones have a connection and he is only able to talk to her. He also tells her their time is limited. What would you do if you had a second chance at goodbye?

The book goes back and forth before Sams death and after. I didn’t enjoy the way the story played out that way. I felt like it was choppy. There were also a lot of characters who didn’t do anything for the storyline. The main characters were well thought out and written. There was also a lot of different things going on in the book.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed the story I just wish it wasn’t so choppy. It was a quick and touching read.

I’m actually not sure what made me request this ARC, but I’m so happy I did. This story was beautiful and painful and far more profound than its Young Adult label will ever get credit for. I’m not going to lie; both husband and dog came into the bedroom to check on me when they heard how loudly I was sobbing at this story.

In this poignant novel, high school senior Julie has her entire future planned out - leaving her small town behind to attend college in the city with her boyfriend, Sam. But when Sam dies, everything changes. In her grief, she calls Sam’s phone to hear his voicemail, only to find herself actually talking to Sam. Somehow, Julie’s been given a second chance at goodbye. But when does the process of saying goodbye turn into holding on to something she can never have? The opening sentence grabbed me right away, even if I was slightly confused about what was happening at first. I deeply appreciate the respect Dustin Thao has for his characters. Sometimes I feel like YA novels (or society in general) don’t take teenagers seriously and minimize their pain. Julie’s profound sense of loss is represented with the depth of emotions it deserves, and, as an adult reader, I felt it hard.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

I had a hard time following the timeline of flashbacks. I agree with Thao’s choice to not let the reader follow the love story first and then rip it away, but by showing random moments out of order was confusing for me. If he had shown them in order or maybe even given some dates, it would have been a lot easier to follow.

Many thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for sharing a digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

This is the novel you didn’t know you needed to read, until you’ve read it.

I don’t have enough words to describe how beautiful this novel is. It absolutely broke my heart, and I honestly which I would have been able to read it in one sitting because I truly did not want to put it down. Grief is a very difficult thing, I wish I would have been given the chance to speak to someone on the phone too. It’s a beautiful novel about friendship, love, life, death, grief and learning to move on. Julie being given the chance to talk on the phone to Sam is a way to help her say goodbye and move on with her life, but also for Sam to be able to move on too even though moving on doesn’t mean you have to forget the person. But before they both get to actually move on, Sam still has presents to give to Julie and things to show her and Julie still wants to get to make sure Sam will be remembered and that is dream about his music will come true.

You can feel the pain that every characters feels. You get to know so many of them, and how they were connected to Sam. I wish we could have known more about some of them, like more memories connected to Sam (for example for Oliver, I truly wished we would have seen more of him and Sam and even him and Julie).

This book is about grief and about moving on after losing someone. Even though I liked the premise of the book, there were 2 aspects that I didn’t quite enjoy: first, I particularly disliked the MC, not because the way she was grieving, because each person griefs differently, but by the way she was before the tragedy - she came across as rude and sometimes entitled (to a point I wish she was the one who died); the second aspect is the magic realism itself. I don’t feel it was explored enough and we don’t really understand how it works/is possible, and leaves us completely blind to the “rules”.⁣ In the end, even though it’s a pretty fast book to read, I couldn’t get past these two aspects.

Thank you to St Martins Press, Wednesday books and of course Dustin Thao for the ARC of this book. You've Reached Sam is a Young Adult Contemporary Fiction Noval, aimed at the Teen/YA crowd.

This book covers the teenage love story of Julie and Sam, and the gaping hole left in her life when he passes away unexpectedly. Julie is heartbroken at the loss copes the only way she knows how, by trying to forget. But Sam doesn't let her.

Despite being a book about death and grief it is actually surprisingly light and refreshing. It flicks back and forwards to before the accident and after the accident.

A pleasant read.

My heart is utterly broken. I've said that about other books and it doesn't compare to this one. I absolutely love the aesthetics that are coming through in this novel (now that cover makes so much more sense! and even more heartbreaking!) By the end, you're just numb from the heartache and the angst. The whole novel is steeped in grief and the lesson taught is one of the hardest to digest but it's well-meant.

You've Reached Sam is a beautiful, heartwarming story of a young girl learning to live through her grief. It's a story of growth, and moreover of how to deal when life appends all your plans and expectations.

Characters- Julie, our main character, is a very realistic and flawed character. She is a complicated mess of feelings after her boyfriend, Sam's death.
And as you see her grappling with that sense of loss, you also see her struggling with all the things of everyday life, like maintaining friendships, graduation, college applications...
It just forces her to realise that the world doesn't just stop for everyone even if it feels like it has collapsed for you.
Also, I also appreciated that the side characters were really well-developed. All of Julie's friends seem like they could all have their own book.

QUOTE-
I missed you. I missed you infinity.

Writing- The writing, and I feel so bad saying this😅, but I didn't expect it to be so good, for some reason, but the writing was wonderful!
It had this really spring-time, atmospheric feel to it. It was very vivid, and I really enjoyed it.

This book is less of a love story and more magical realism I guess if I had to classify it into a genre the fans of the bookstore nation colour of after by Emily X aap and are going to love this even though getting calls from a dead person sounds Visa at first I could understand by Julie believed it and accepted it that even though I wouldn't necessarily do the same thing I understood the frame of mind and how she must have felt at that moment.

QUOTE-
“Who are you writing for again?” Mr. Lee asks, arching a brow. He asked me this before. I know the answer he wants to hear. I write for myself. I'm not sure what this really means, though. I can't help caring about what people think, especially about my writing. "We have too many voices inside our heads. You have to pick out the ones that mean something to you. What story do you want to tell?”

Representation- The Asian representation in this book is fantastic! Both the main characters are Asian- American, and the way their culture was incorporated is so well done.

THEMES- The author does a really good job of portraying how grief isn't a definite thing. It doesn't really come to you in those orderly stages of shock, anger or guilt. It's more of a confused muddle of emotions hitting you at different times.
I feel like this will be such a relatable rate for anyone who's going through the pain of losing a loved one or has gone through it especially in these times.

The Quick Cut: A teen girl grapples with mourning over her recently deceased boyfriend when she gets a call from him.

A Real Review:
Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing the ARC for an honest review.

Grief has a way of sneaking up on you and surprising your closest friends and family. Some try to pretend it doesn't affect while others lean so hard into it that they can't do anything but mourn. For Julie, she can't face the present now that her boyfriend Sam is gone.

Julie is seventeen years old and on the verge of adulthood. She's planned her life plans around her boyfriend Sam. When he does unexpectedly, all those plans disappear (along with her interest in the rest of her life). She refuses to go to the funeral, gets rid of all of his things, and tries to do what she can to keep going. It all fails... until she finally calls Sam's phone to hear his voicemail one last time and he picks up. How is this possible? Can she get him back?

Death and loss are something we all go through at some point in life. How we deal with those says a lot about our strength of character. No offense, but our lead character Julie epically fails that test when her boyfriend Sam does.

Julie literally drops everything in her life and refuses to let anyone be there for her. I can't say I really wanted her to make it to the other side of her grief at any given point. She's one of those people who drops everything when she's dating a guy. When he died, a part of her seemed to as well. I do appreciate that she did bring a plethora of Asian representation to this story though.

The part that really made me not enjoy the story is the fact that there really wasn't anything unique about the book. Death happens. Grief hots hard. What unique story did this tell? I couldn't find it.

A book about death that says nothing new.

My rating: 2 out of 5

Let me preface by saying, that I am not much of a YA reader or a romance reader, the latter being because I don't tend to like happily ever after endings. That being said, I had high hopes that I would like YOU'VE REACHED SAM because... I mean, based on the premise the ending had to be a little more complicated than happily ever after, right?

Unfortunately, everything about this book fell flat for me. There are frequent flashbacks to Sam and Julie's time together to try to build our connection to the couple, but they didn't do anything for me. The writing was plain and did nothing to stir any real emotion.

Based on what I've seen, Thao drew some inspiration from Makoto Shinkai movies, and I can tell he was trying to evoke that same feeling of loneliness, grief, and melancholy of those movies. The reason I think this failed is that movies are able to leverage soundtracks, acting, and visuals to create help get the viewer immersed and invested. Obviously, books cannot leverage these same elements and the storytelling of YOU'VE REACHED SAM did nothing to compensate for this. It was a lot of telling and no showing, which made me feel distanced and uninvested in the story.

Big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC.
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I give this book a 3/5⭐.

I believe this book is not the book for me.
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So, i was very drawn to the book's cover and summary when the author announced it on twit so i keep my eyes out on Netgalley.

I might've put a too high expectation for the book because of the really intriguing concept.

So we follow Julie, who had just lost her boyfriend- Sam. While dwelling in grieve and in desperate to listen to his, she call his' phone to listen to his voicemail but then Sam picks up.

I have to say that i have a very different thoughts of how the story goes and i was quite sad on how the story turns out.

First of all, characters. I like some of them while others i don't really think much and i mostly our main girl, Julie. This book only have shows us Julie's pov and how she handle Sam's death. I would really loved to see the other characters' pov on Sam's death and also Julie's behaviour. Esp Sam, his bestfriend and his cousin(i forgot their names😂).

Julie by all means was not a bad character but the way she handle her grieve, sadness and anger was really gave big impact not only on her but to those who knows her relationship with Sam. At first i didn't really mind but after she doing a couple of times i started to get very annoyed.

Nevertheless, the writing style is honestly very easy to get into like it's not heavy nor complicated. I would say that the author's writing style really is my taste. Also the pace honestly really suitable, not too fast nor too slow just enough to see how Julie and other characters handle their grieve and lastly how both Sam and Julie finally accepting their long overdue goodbyes.

All in all, it's a heartbreaking story between a lover. It shows us different ways of people handle grieve of their loved ones passing. Totally want read more from this author!

I adored this book.

It started off right in the middle of it, with Julie struggling after her boyfriend Sam has passed away. You don't immediately find out how it happened, but she begins reminiscing on their relationship and how she met him before he picks up the phone one day when she calls his voicemail.

Throughout this you watch Julie spiral more and more into depression, she relies on these phone calls with her dead boyfriend to get through things while she feels like her friends can't understand her. In fact, I feel like a lot of people don't take the time to really understand how much more difficult it is for her, versus them. At one point her friend Mika makes a point to tell Julie they all lost him, not just her, and although I completely understand that, everyone feels grief in different ways.

As Julie continues these phone calls she goes through important times in their relationship while falling in love with him all over again, you just know it's going to end in heartbreak.
This story is not really a love story, it's one about letting go of the past and trying to move forward.

Overall I loved this and I teared up a lot, I like that even though Julie was difficult to be around, her friends stayed there for her. She also had the time and space to grow, to realise she wasn't the only one feeling the grief. I think that the middle of the book was a bit long, where nothing much happened, but overall this isn't a super long book so it wasn't slow enough for me to even consider putting down.

By far one of my favourite books this year, 5/5.

I appreciated this book more than I can explain. Julie’s grief was so realistically written that I felt what she was feeling. I cried when she cried. I loved Sam’s character and I especially liked that even though he has passed we still got to learn about him, his life, friend group - what made him Sam basically. At times Julie did irritate me but that’s explainable.

I do think that some parts could’ve been explained better or made clearer, and the writing more mature because at some points it came across as very mediocre but overall I really enjoyed this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for access to the eARC!

I need to stop putting myself through these kind of books. They literally break my heart and leave me in tears without fail.

But with that being said, it was a really good read. Thao wrote a real and raw perspective on a girl grieving the loss of her boyfriend and i loved how honestly it was portrayed. Grief comes in all forms and it was clear to see how it was displayed by the different characters that knew and loved Sam.

Julie was written in a way where even though her decisions and actions could come across annoying, they were so real from the point of view of grieving high schooler who just lost her first love. It would have been nice to be shown how Mika and Sam’s family dealt with the grief (some of which was shown through James). It was good to see Julie finally moving on in the end and I thought Sam was placed in the story really well too. He never did answer the questions that Julie had but I guess it makes sense since no one really knows.

I loved the mentions of Japanese culture in the story as I found they were well placed.

Oh and the voicemail had me in tears of course. But I did enjoy this book!

You’ve Reached Sam wrecked me. I knew what was coming yet I still plunged head-first into this beautifully painful story about a teen who has to live with the loss of her boyfriend, Sam. Personally, I’m incredibly vulnerable to books with themes of grief and losing a loved one unexpectedly. That’s why I avoided If I Stay and Me Before You like the devil was going to rip my soul away.

Dustin Thao’s simplistic writing style captured every emotion and essence of losing someone whose time was suddenly cut short. The yearning to be reunited, to have them physically beside and to talk to them was so vividly portrayed. While it featured the grief that everyone was experiencing, it highlighted moments the characters had fond memories of Sam, and how they moved on from such a tragic loss. You bet I was crying whenever they shared happy memories and during their acceptance of Sam’s death.

Missing him, Julie called Sam’s phone just to hear his voicemail but the unexpected happened. Sam picked up. It was a week after his death yet mysteriously they were connected by phone calls. Through those calls, they reminisced the joyful moments they had together and Sam fulfills some promises to Julie. Every single scene of the two of them made me sob helplessly. I couldn’t even begin expressing how devastating knowing that Sam was already gone and they were only linked by this feeble and fragile connection.

Julie’s pain was palpable. Her way of processing Sam’s death was beyond heartbreaking. It was messy and chaotic and drowning. Consumed by her grief and guilt, Julie wasn’t really a good friend. Basically, she started detaching herself from everyone and even missed Sam’s funeral. Comparing Julie’s before and after, the change is so great. If it were any other book, I would have been irritated by her actions and selfishness but I couldn’t even begin to feel annoyed at Julie when she had lost someone so close to her.

Why I decided to read You’ve Reached Sam is beyond any logical explanation except the heart wants what it wants. Nevertheless, I don’t regret my boyfriend’s startled question of “ARE YOU CRYING?!” while I was reading the last few chapters nor cared about my swollen, puffy eyes the next day. Take this as a warning since I started tearing up from page one. Reading the scenes where they planned for their future but to know that it’ll never be a reality just brought upon more tears. Also, I could never miss out on a book that’s pitched as Kimi no Na wa, one of my favorite Japanese animated films.

You’ve Reached Sam is about the grief, pain, and regret when one’s loved one has passed, the way the living mourns the dead, and the days in which their presence can no longer be felt. This second chance at goodbye absolutely broke me. An utterly gut-wrenching yet beautiful story of Julie and Sam. Dustin Thao handled grief poignantly and delicately while showing all the genuine messiness of it all.

You've Reached Sam is about a high schooler, Julie who's boyfriend is tragically killed. When she decides to give him a call, he picks up and now she can talk to him through their phone connection. When I got this ARC from Netgally, I wasn't completely aware of the storyline (I just thought the cover was super pretty and I was interested in reading more Asian American rep!) so I will admit I was completely blindsided during the first few chapters. I wish I could say it had gotten better from there.

After realizing what this story was about, I wanted to like it. I really did. The premise was super interesting and I loved the fact that there's this story for young adults about grief in losing both your boyfriend and your best friend at a very young age. Unfortunately, everything fell a bit flat for me.

Julie was a flat character in my opinion. She didn't really have much depth to her and her experiences were very selfish and I wanted to throttle her a few times just so she would wake up and see how many people love her and want to support her. Sam was a very sweet if very one sided character who we get to know more through flashbacks, but towards the end of their connection Sam didn't feel like he was the same person which I suppose could be based in the fact that he's now dead and changed.

I adored the side characters in this book. Mika and Oliver were amazing even when Julie wasn't being a good friend to them, they still made sure to try and include her. That being said, I shouldn't want to like a side character more than the main character who's POV we're seeing the world through.

Overall, this book had a great idea behind it, but it didn't power all the way through to the end. I felt like not much happened and the ending was a little rushed. Wouldn't read again, but was a good read nonetheless.

This one wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t for me. I’m not usually a huge fan of sad stories, but the beautiful cover and the rave reviews from some of my closest friends convinced me to try this one. I definitely think there is an audience of people who will absolutely LOVE this, it’s just not my personal taste.

I really wanted to love this book.

I just didn't. The first couple of chapters (especially the opening) were really good. But then I felt my myself getting disinterested towards the middle.
This story does an excellent job of portraying grief.....but the main character came off as so unlikable, it was hard to connect.

3/5 stars

This book was sad! The reader knows very clearly what they're getting into from the synopsis of this book, but I didn't realize how much of a trigger it would be for me. I enjoyed the walk through Julie's memories of Sam and how she grows over the course of the phone calls. Overall, I did like this book.

i was looking forward to reviewing this book but the file i was given i am unable to read in any format despite reaching out to netgalley several times. The site informed me they will attempt to reach out to the author and if i hear back and am able to read the book i will update my review then. I am going to give 3 stars however because i have friends who have read the book early and said it was spectacular and worth the wait.