You've Reached Sam

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Saying goodbyes to our loved ones has never been an easy thing to do and Dustin Thao brings those emotions, that heavy reality to life in his book. Honestly, it would make an amazing movie.

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?

It had original part: the phone calls between late boyfriend and alive girlfriend, and I do appreciate it's uniqueness, but if I am being completely honest, after a while I just didn't see the point. The loss of Sam impacts Julie’s whole community, and she doesn’t realize until she begins talking to him again that she’s withdrawn not only from his family but from her other friends and even her own family. At first the calls seem to help her regain her feet and process her emotions. Eventually, they morph into something else, though. And it becomes more and more clear that the calls can’t continue forever or be an alternative to saying goodbye. Downstairs in the kitchen, I find my mother leaning over the sink, staring out of the window. It’s Sunday morning, so she’s working from home. The bottom step creaks under my foot. Sam and Julie are meant for each other, destined to meet, destined to be together until the same destiny pulls the tragedy card. Cruel. No explanation whatsoever to any of the questions that I had about the supernatural elements in this story (what a missed opportunity).

The book really resonated with me because one of my most intense fears is losing someone I love. And this book is that fear in book form. For Julie, this fear becomes a reality - and it follows how she grapples with his death. Fantastic.” My mother nods. “You could use the fresh air, get some decent coffee. And it’s good to see your friends. That reminds me, have you talked to Mr. Lee at the bookstore?” A heart-breaking story of grief and loss, You've Reached Sam is a YA magical realism read about healing and moving on." —Young Adult Books Central you know what would be crazy, if I rewatched Your Name for the 100th time and then read this book. I wonder how hard I'm going to cry.Life will pass right by you,” she says, her eyes focused on the road. “And you end up missing the little things, the moments you don’t think matter—but they do. Moments that make you forget about everything else. Just like with your writing,” she adds out of nowhere. “You don’t write to get to the end. You write because you enjoy doing it. You write and don’t want it to end. Does that make some sense?” 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. I loved how diverse this book was, how it dealt with emotions, not only read, I felt them. Every word was piercing my heart. The characters, the diversity, the wide range of topics it covered while dealing with the main focus of handling loss and grief. It’s outstanding. It’ll teach you multiple lessons, loads and loads! Never forgetting, Julie and Sam were gold! A heartfelt YA read. At times maybe leaning toward the younger YA age range, which is entirely fine - but I do think it missed out on some depth because of this.

All told, “You’ve Reached Sam” is still a great book with a diverse character cast and a lot of different and well done grief representations. This book might not have had the impact I expected it to have, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t good. Thao’s writing style isn’t only effortless but also easy to read and I’m definitely looking forward to read his next book. For a debut novel this was actually pretty good. HOWEVER. despite the fact that it delivers on the crying front, you've reached sam is an extremely disappointing read. 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, and then continuing like nothing had happened. 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.At first, Julie wonders if her calls with Sam are all in her head. Could she be having some kind of mental breakdown? But eventually it becomes clear that Julie and Sam’s connection is something else. “Maybe this is a gift or a glitch in the universe,” Julie reasons. 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.