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giulianalb99's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
3⭐️
⚠️THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS⚠️
You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao is a contemporary YA book about Julie, who struggles to readjust to life after the sudden death of her boyfriend of three years Sam. After a week of her loss and not knowing how to deal with her pain and after her not going to his funeral to say goodbye, she tries calling him on the phone and he surprisingly answers. After this second chance life has given them both, she realizes she can tell him everything that she wanted to say to him while he was still alive but didn’t. But as they talk more and more, Julie has to accept that at some point, this weird connection between them will result in her having to let Sam go all over again.
➵How many more calls before I lose you?
The characters of this story were… meh. I think I disliked most of them, and I didn’t connect with any of them either. Also, I would’ve loved to know more about the secondary characters (Mika, Jay, Rachel and Tristan).
-Julie was really annoying throughout basically the whole book. I understand that she’s grieving and everyone grieves differently, but she acted like she was the only one who lost Sam. She’s just a “pick me” girl, not caring about other people’s feelings and she loves avoiding problems like the plague. I know she’s in her last year of high school, but she was also really immature.
-Sam is a good character, and even though he dies and we get some insight of his life through flashbacks, I would’ve loved to know more about him. I think I would’ve connected with him much more if he appeared more and if he didn’t die in the first chapter.
-Oliver is Sam’s best friend and I think he’s one of the few characters that I liked, but again, this book should’ve been longer so I could connect with him/feel much more things about their friendship.
-Mika is Sam’s cousin and I feel like she was the only one who I connected with. I love how the author portrays her grief and she’s just basically my favorite character.
-Jay, Tristan and Rachel are Sam and Julie’s friends, but we don’t get too much about them to form an opinion on them. Nonetheless, they’re great people.
➵We were two parts of a song. He was the music. And I was the words.
This book was good, but I read other reviews saying that it was “heartbreaking” and that I “was going to sob nonstop” but that never happened. The first chapters were sad but after that it was just boring. The worldbuilding was acceptable, but I’ve read better stuff. Although I love how Thao portrays grief in so many different ways. The fact that I didn’t connect with any character really threw me off. It is very difficult for me to connect with someone who’s dead at the very beginning, that’s why I would’ve love this book to be much longer so I could get a backstory on every character and even though we get flashbacks, it is just not the same, and sometimes they were just repetitive. Yes, with the phone calls you could feel how much love Sam and Julie had for each other, but I think it would’ve been more painful (I guess I love to suffer) if we knew more about their relationship before tragedy happened. This applies to every character’s relationship with Sam, because there’s just a lot of problems between them and with most of them I was like “why?” because the author just doesn’t explain the reason behind them.
Overall, I liked it but I sure am going to forget about it really soon. The start and the end of the book were good, but the middle of it was boring. The hype this book has is tremendous, and I can understand it to some point, but I didn’t cry at all (I just never cry, and no, there isn’t any problem with me) and I expected more, and the fact that I don’t get the reason why Julie can connect with Sam through the phone just made me angry.
➵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.
I think I recommend it if you want a book with a good message, but <b>if you’ve gone through the death of a loved one and/or you’re grieving from a great loss, please do NOT read it, as the book talks mainly about that topic and check the <u>trigger warnings before doing so (tw such as: grief, death, car accident, bullying, violence, racism, etc.).
(English is not my first language, if you find any mistakes please let me know).
⚠️THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS⚠️
You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao is a contemporary YA book about Julie, who struggles to readjust to life after the sudden death of her boyfriend of three years Sam. After a week of her loss and not knowing how to deal with her pain and after her not going to his funeral to say goodbye, she tries calling him on the phone and he surprisingly answers. After this second chance life has given them both, she realizes she can tell him everything that she wanted to say to him while he was still alive but didn’t. But as they talk more and more, Julie has to accept that at some point, this weird connection between them will result in her having to let Sam go all over again.
➵How many more calls before I lose you?
The characters of this story were… meh. I think I disliked most of them, and I didn’t connect with any of them either. Also, I would’ve loved to know more about the secondary characters (Mika, Jay, Rachel and Tristan).
-Julie was really annoying throughout basically the whole book. I understand that she’s grieving and everyone grieves differently, but she acted like she was the only one who lost Sam. She’s just a “pick me” girl, not caring about other people’s feelings and she loves avoiding problems like the plague. I know she’s in her last year of high school, but she was also really immature.
-Sam is a good character, and even though he dies and we get some insight of his life through flashbacks, I would’ve loved to know more about him. I think I would’ve connected with him much more if he appeared more and if he didn’t die in the first chapter.
-Oliver is Sam’s best friend and I think he’s one of the few characters that I liked, but again, this book should’ve been longer so I could connect with him/feel much more things about their friendship.
-Mika is Sam’s cousin and I feel like she was the only one who I connected with. I love how the author portrays her grief and she’s just basically my favorite character.
-Jay, Tristan and Rachel are Sam and Julie’s friends, but we don’t get too much about them to form an opinion on them. Nonetheless, they’re great people.
➵We were two parts of a song. He was the music. And I was the words.
This book was good, but I read other reviews saying that it was “heartbreaking” and that I “was going to sob nonstop” but that never happened. The first chapters were sad but after that it was just boring. The worldbuilding was acceptable, but I’ve read better stuff. Although I love how Thao portrays grief in so many different ways. The fact that I didn’t connect with any character really threw me off. It is very difficult for me to connect with someone who’s dead at the very beginning, that’s why I would’ve love this book to be much longer so I could get a backstory on every character and even though we get flashbacks, it is just not the same, and sometimes they were just repetitive. Yes, with the phone calls you could feel how much love Sam and Julie had for each other, but I think it would’ve been more painful (I guess I love to suffer) if we knew more about their relationship before tragedy happened. This applies to every character’s relationship with Sam, because there’s just a lot of problems between them and with most of them I was like “why?” because the author just doesn’t explain the reason behind them.
Overall, I liked it but I sure am going to forget about it really soon. The start and the end of the book were good, but the middle of it was boring. The hype this book has is tremendous, and I can understand it to some point, but I didn’t cry at all (I just never cry, and no, there isn’t any problem with me) and I expected more, and the fact that I don’t get the reason why Julie can connect with Sam through the phone just made me angry.
➵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.
I think I recommend it if you want a book with a good message, but <b>if you’ve gone through the death of a loved one and/or you’re grieving from a great loss, please do NOT read it, as the book talks mainly about that topic and check the <u>trigger warnings before doing so (tw such as: grief, death, car accident, bullying, violence, racism, etc.).
(English is not my first language, if you find any mistakes please let me know).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Grief, Racism, Car accident, and Death
Moderate: Alcohol
Minor: Violence and Abandonment
holiday7's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I actually liked this a lot more than I thought I would. And honestly, Mika is definitely my favorite character.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Car accident
Moderate: Racism and Bullying
macliffe's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death
Moderate: Car accident and Racism
dajaelizabeth's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
So this book wrecked me throughout it. I have seen some comments saying Julie was rude and annoying; I think people forgot what this book was about. Someone said she was rude in the flashbacks where was she rude. At no point was she rude in my opinion she was someone grieving the loss of plans she had made and someone she loved with all her heart. This was her learning to let go of someone she thought she would have more time with maybe even a lifetime. She felt like she was shorted time.
They had planned their whole life together. Julie and Sam both had to learn to let go of what they thought would happen.
I do feel for Sam. He was robbed of a future he thought he was going to have. Was he being a little selfish yes and in this situation, he had every right to be. He wanted to get the chance to have final moments with Julie and say goodbye to his girlfriend and family. He died suddenly and to him without reason. His final voicemail hurt to read.
Throughout this book, you knew the ending was coming the same way Julie did but you hoped that it wasn't that wrecking. And you know there are going to be a lot more things that he misses out on once that last phone call happens. Those phone calls were for him as much as they were for Julie. To me this was the perfect book about grief.
I cried throughout this book and there was a point where I thought the ending wouldn't be good and this was just another overhyped book. This book to me captured what I think a lot of people would feel if they thought they would spend the rest of their life with someone only to have them die before that life even got the chance to start.
Her not being able to go to her funeral and candlelight was something I could relate to. This might not be everyone's way of grieving but this is sometimes what it looks like. It wasn't over-dramatic like in movies sometimes this to me was the natural progression of things. The ending showed that she would never forget him, never fully let him go but she knew they both had to move on and say goodbye. And that is all this book was a final goodbye for them.
I am happy that Sam and Julie both got the goodbye they needed. Sam so that he could rest and Julie so that she could live. This is what it was about. It made me feel like I was going through their grief of living and dying with them.
This represented what to me a lot of people would do if they could call a loved one who died so they could say goodbye on their own terms.
So I would recommend this book but I will say that if you are anything like me this book with break your heart. I can say this is the first book that I think really altered my brain as the girls on TikTok say. This changed me for the better and also helped with my grief as well even though they have been gone for a while.
They had planned their whole life together. Julie and Sam both had to learn to let go of what they thought would happen.
I do feel for Sam. He was robbed of a future he thought he was going to have. Was he being a little selfish yes and in this situation, he had every right to be. He wanted to get the chance to have final moments with Julie and say goodbye to his girlfriend and family. He died suddenly and to him without reason. His final voicemail hurt to read.
Throughout this book, you knew the ending was coming the same way Julie did but you hoped that it wasn't that wrecking. And you know there are going to be a lot more things that he misses out on once that last phone call happens. Those phone calls were for him as much as they were for Julie. To me this was the perfect book about grief.
I cried throughout this book and there was a point where I thought the ending wouldn't be good and this was just another overhyped book. This book to me captured what I think a lot of people would feel if they thought they would spend the rest of their life with someone only to have them die before that life even got the chance to start.
Her not being able to go to her funeral and candlelight was something I could relate to. This might not be everyone's way of grieving but this is sometimes what it looks like. It wasn't over-dramatic like in movies sometimes this to me was the natural progression of things. The ending showed that she would never forget him, never fully let him go but she knew they both had to move on and say goodbye. And that is all this book was a final goodbye for them.
I am happy that Sam and Julie both got the goodbye they needed. Sam so that he could rest and Julie so that she could live. This is what it was about. It made me feel like I was going through their grief of living and dying with them.
This represented what to me a lot of people would do if they could call a loved one who died so they could say goodbye on their own terms.
So I would recommend this book but I will say that if you are anything like me this book with break your heart. I can say this is the first book that I think really altered my brain as the girls on TikTok say. This changed me for the better and also helped with my grief as well even though they have been gone for a while.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Car accident
kassidyreads's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Car accident
Minor: Racism, Bullying, and Sexual harassment
chrissy3's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Car accident and Alcohol
sameen_haque's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
" 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. "
📱 The story follows the life of Julie who recently lost the love of her life Sam in a car accident. As she tries to cope up with it while everyone blames her for Sam's tragic demise, she finds herself calling on Sam's number wanting to hear his voice even when she knows he's dead. But to her surprise Sam picks up and they are reconnected once again.
📱 It was a really intriguing plot but there was something missing that the book didn't live up to my expectations. I was waiting for something more surprising to happen but it didn't.
📱 For a young adult fiction this book was really heavy and discussed many sensitive topics like grieving over the dead, dealing with loss of a loved one and restarting life from a new perspective.
📱 Sam and Julie shared a really meaningful and beautiful relationship, with future plans and supporting each other. It was not like the current dating culture and relationship we get to see nowadays. All the characters were written nicely and lovable.
📱 I really loved the relationship between Sam and his younger brother. How he got affected with Sam's death and Julie's absence was really hard to read.
📱 Overall the book was a nice read, not something i would pick again and recommend highly but people who are getting started with young adult and contemporary genres would like it much more.
📱 The story follows the life of Julie who recently lost the love of her life Sam in a car accident. As she tries to cope up with it while everyone blames her for Sam's tragic demise, she finds herself calling on Sam's number wanting to hear his voice even when she knows he's dead. But to her surprise Sam picks up and they are reconnected once again.
📱 It was a really intriguing plot but there was something missing that the book didn't live up to my expectations. I was waiting for something more surprising to happen but it didn't.
📱 For a young adult fiction this book was really heavy and discussed many sensitive topics like grieving over the dead, dealing with loss of a loved one and restarting life from a new perspective.
📱 Sam and Julie shared a really meaningful and beautiful relationship, with future plans and supporting each other. It was not like the current dating culture and relationship we get to see nowadays. All the characters were written nicely and lovable.
📱 I really loved the relationship between Sam and his younger brother. How he got affected with Sam's death and Julie's absence was really hard to read.
📱 Overall the book was a nice read, not something i would pick again and recommend highly but people who are getting started with young adult and contemporary genres would like it much more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Grief, and Death
brandieh21's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Car accident
mackenzieann101's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
this was a very confusing book but it was something i needed to read to gross myself. not a comfortable read but a needed and motivating story. thank you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief
ashlislibrary's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Death, and Grief