Seventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies. And everything changes.
I was granted eARC and audio ARC access to You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao through the publisher via NetGalley. Thank you to whoever decided to approve my request! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest. For simplicity, I will be writing a single review and I will contain my comments pertaining to the audiobook to its own single paragraph.
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About the Book
You’ve Reached Sam
by Dustin Thao
Publishing 9 November 2021
Wednesday Books
Genre: YA Magical Realism, Romance
Page Count: 304
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Seventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies. And everything changes.
Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries everything to forget him and the tragic way he died. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces back memories. 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.
In a miraculous turn of events, Julie’s been given a second chance at goodbye. The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam’s voice makes her fall for him all over again, and with each call it becomes harder to let him go. However, keeping her otherworldly calls with Sam a secret isn’t easy, especially when Julie witnesses the suffering Sam’s family is going through. Unable to stand by the sidelines and watch their shared loved ones in pain, Julie is torn between spilling the truth about her calls with Sam and risking their connection and losing him forever.
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My Review
My Rating: 4 Stars
Consider liking my review on Goodreads
I was granted eARC and audio ARC access to You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao through the publisher via NetGalley. Thank you to whoever decided to approve my request! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest. For simplicity, I will be writing a single review and I will contain my comments pertaining to the audiobook to its own single paragraph.
You’ve Reached Sam is the story of Washington state teenager Julie and the remainder of her senior year of high school after the unexpected death of her boyfriend Sam. Through some unknown magic, her phone and his have been connected beyond the veil and they’re able to talk after his death, but the connection is growing weaker, the calls shorter and farther apart, and Julie is learning what it means to move on.
This book is both heartbreaking and uplifting, and I truly think it will be very helpful and healing to readers young and old who are struggling through Julie’s situation. Julie is slowly reconnecting with the people she and Sam shared, finding new connections, and learning to put the pieces of her future back together without Sam in it. It’s so difficult, she faulters a lot, and she’s unintentionally hurting the living people who still care for her when she lets her grief and the connection with Sam she’s not wiling to give up get in the way, but eventually she’ll learn to carry Sam with her in a healthy, less interfering way and live the life he’d want her to have.
There were scenes in this book that brought me to tears. The emotions in this book are powerful and right on the money. It’s messy, and early-grief Julie is not a person I would want to be friends with. She’s flaking out on everyone still living, she’s forgetting about all of her responsibilities, she’s ready to throw away everything that reminds her of Sam because she can’t handle the memories yet she’s always lost in them, and she’s angry at her mother for honouring her wishes and not stopping her from letting those mementoes go. But as Julie reconnects with her friends and Sam’s family, as she comes out of her shell and make new connections, both returning to the girl she once was and taking steps toward the woman she’ll become, she becomes a character I very much fell in love with and feel quite attached to.
I feel like I should mention the #OwnVoices aspect of this book, as both Sam and Dustin are Asian-American men and some touches of cultural differences around death ceremonies and grieving are present in the story. It’s not super immersive and in-your-face different from what normally gets published, but the representation is there in subtle, loving ways.
I will say sometimes the extended lost in memories scenes are a bit much, a bit too long, and I wanted them to end so the story could move forward a tad faster. I was also quite disappointed… [spoiler available under spoiler tag on the Goodreads review. This hidden comment pertains to something revealed during one of the phone calls with Sam that shifted something for me, as a reader, with what I perceived as an important grief healing metaphor.]
The audiobook narration was perfect! Soneela Nankani’s voice works so well for this story, her pacing is great, and it was very easy to keep track of who was talking, whether or not we were in reality vs a memory, etc. I would definitely look for other books with this narrator.
Overall this is a touching story of love and loss, and a fantastic debut novel. I look forward to reading more from this author and I absolutely recommend this book to fans of YA.
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This sounds heartbreaking!