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faeriefox's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I loved this book so much. It's the first contemporary romance I've picked up, and I don't regret it. It was completely heartbreaking, but also beautiful.
I loved Sam as a character so much, and Julie's journey to find peace (as well as his) was really touching. Though not the main focus of the novel, I especially loved Julie's friendships with other characters, especially Oliver.
I also got really choked up and teary at the end when Sam and Julie said goodbye, and then at Sam's voicemail.
Dustin Thao seems to really speak from the heart and understand emotion, and, like Julie, I love a story that can make me cry.
The only issues I found with this book were the numerous typos and grammar mistakes, which I found very distracting. The prose was also a bit young-sounding for a YA novel, but not to the point where it was distracting.
The cover art is also simply gorgeous.
All in all I look forward to Thao's next book coming out!
Graphic: Bullying, Car accident, and Death
Moderate: Racism
guilloryj's review
- 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
Graphic: Grief, Animal death, and Car accident
Moderate: Racism and Bullying
kingangie's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Car accident
Moderate: Racism and Bullying
giulianalb99's review against another edition
- 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
⚠️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).
Graphic: Bullying, Grief, Racism, Car accident, and Death
Moderate: Alcohol
Minor: Violence and Abandonment
holiday7's review
- 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
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Car accident
Moderate: Racism and Bullying
kassidyreads's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Death, Grief, and Car accident
Minor: Racism, Bullying, and Sexual harassment
icarusandthesun's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Graphic: Death and Grief
Moderate: Car accident
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Violence, Bullying, and Sexual harassment
lomahongva's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Moderate: Bullying and Racism
Minor: Car accident
reiley_61's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Bullying
teslis's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
The main character Julie were the main problem with why I didn't like this book. I did understand her in the beginning, how she is all shut down and couldn't do anything because of what had happened to her boyfriend Sam. The problems started when she called him for the first time. When Julie realize that she can talk to Sam over the phone her emotions just flips. From one second to another she is all fine and can't comprehend that the people around her is mourning Sam. All she can think about is to talking to Sam which leads to her hurting everyone around her over and over. I just got mad at Julie about how she didn't listen to her friends and just kept thinking about herself or even not that. She just did nothing :( She was not understanding of the others in her surrounding and about them felling sad. Thats the main part of the book that I couldn't see past which gave it the low points.
This book took me 7 hours and 10 minuts to read.
Graphic: Death and Grief
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Car accident