Reviews tagging 'Violence'

You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao

10 reviews

laffi's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad slow-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

4.0


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cinnamonghostie's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-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

4.25


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giulianalb99's review against another edition

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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).

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icarusandthesun's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful 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

1.0

this review might contain minor spoilers.

i feel absolutely terrible for saying this, but you've reached sam was one of the worst books i have read in a while.
so i want to preface this by saying that i don't wanna shit on the author or anything, and it's just my personal opinion and i am someone who's not too fond of young adult books in general, so take all of this as you will.

the characters were a bloody mess.
not all of them, but very (un)conveniently only the ones that mattered - namely the main characters.
i don't think i've ever met anyone who's more unlikeable and frustrating and selfish than julie: skipping her boyfriend's funeral, ignoring her friends, and meanwhile it's all just me me me me. "i feel so horrible", "i want him back", "i can't let go". fuck you.
she's mean to everyone and has no personality whatsoever. whatever she says, it's bland and icky and she acts like she's the victim all of the time when she's really not.
she was also just a bad friend and a bad person in general, imo.
especially the thing with tristan. like?? are you insane??
(if you didn’t want this to be a date, that’s fine, but then just bloody tell him maybe, instead of telling him you won’t come, even though it means the world to him?? not because he loves you but because you’re supposed to be his god damn friend.)
her whole character was asking how 'all of this is possible' and 'where are you' and 'i can't let go' and 'i wanted to but i didn't' and 'i'm sorry' and 'i feel guilty' and 'i don't know what to write about'. endless whining and endless repetitions. if i had a dime for every time she said the same phrase or asked the same question over and over again, i'd be rich enough to go back to the book store and buy a different book.

and sam wasn't much better either. he wasn't as annoying, but definitely as bland. there was no personality in his speech, in his words, only in his actions. playing a round of 'who said what?' with the cast of this book would be a herculean task.

and the "bullies", or "mean girls" or whatever you wanna call them in that pretty little unconvincing high school setting, were atrociously written.
they were supposedly friends with sam, which poses the questions: why was sam friends with people who behave like this? and why did they behave like this in the first place?
they had no redeeming qualities. they were simply there to be mean, and to piss of the characters that were supposed to be the more 'favorable' ones (which they weren't).
i suppose the author wrote one of the bullies to be racist? which didn't make any sense at all because they were friends with sam and sam is japanese.
also, they were portrayed to be the bad guys, but they weren't even that evil?
yuki wanted to create the 'asian study group' thing, and one of the bullies asked why she named it the 'asian study group' when everyone was allowed to join, not just asians.
the main cast was all pissed at him, though that's a perfectly valid question, isn't it?
at one point the main girl and one of the bullies get into a verbal argument. and mika goes out of her way to make the VERBAL fight physical. she literally slaps a bitch. and then proceeds to use her SELF-DEFENCE moves to mess up the two bullies. the author portrayed it to be a #girlboss and #badass move, which it wasn't at all?? mika wasn't being badass, she was aggressive and violent and it's glossed over and portrayed as something heroic. starting fights and using your superior fighting knowledge to win against some inexperienced, weak high school kids is - controversial take, i know - not okay?

so at that point i was already pretty pissed, right. well, i'm not done yet.

the mindless clichés that were put into this book made me wanna slam my head against the wall. because it's got everything. and with 'everything' i also mean, among other things, inconsequential sexual harassment at a bar. why?
it's always good to talk about stuff like this, because it happens, of course, but this kind of representation isn't helping the cause. the sexual assault was solely used to establish mika's character - that she does self-defence and stuff. that's it. no consequences, nothing. it makes sexual harassment seem like a joke, like something that happens and can be easily forgotten. not cool.
and by the time they boarded the ferris wheel in one of the flashbacks at the end of the book, i was utterly done with all the sweetly sickening tropes - and with the story in general.

man, the story. what a nothingburger. such an interesting concept, and 300 pages that could be compressed into 5 well-structured sentences. and the ending? with the magical crystal and shit? i felt like i was reading a children's fantasy book. goofy.

needless to say, i didn't cry. the ending was okay though. julie realized some of her mistakes and character flaws and there was a bit of character development. i think i would've enjoyed the book more if the character development had hit a bit earlier and not in the last two chapters when it didn't matter anyway and the metaphorical lake that's my opinion of julie had long frozen over.

if you like young adult and the utter perfection that is peak melodramatic teenage behavior, you might like this.
if you like clichés and overused tropes, you also might like this.

but, uh, proceed with caution. 

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luananki's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

maybe i should have read you‘ve reached sam at another point but i felt a little underwhelmed after finishing it.
i enjoyed the characters and the whole concept was interesting to be a part of but i really hated how the topic of grief was handled. it was also difficult for me to relate to any of the characters. 
i guess i expected to get more emotional. i shed a tear or two at the last few chapters but all in all i don’t really get the hype but it might just not be the book for me

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bri__'s review

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dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I would have given this 2 stars because I found it boring and I struggled to finish it. Unfortunately I didn't connect with the characters, especially the main (Julie). I liked the metaphors and the deeper meanings provided by this book, I also cried at the end but it was just a few tears and didn't become sobbing or anything major. I was disappointed with this book tbh but I can see why others may find it appealing.

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stephmorrisbyatt's review against another edition

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emotional 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? No

4.0

Bring tissues. This book made me cry my eyes out.

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wet_towlette's review against another edition

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emotional sad 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

3.75

I loved julie. I saw someone pitch this book as having an unlikeable main character and although I can see it, I definitely disagree. This book was such an interesting exploration of not only grief and relationships in every sense of the word, but also a good look into what’s like to be young. How the impact of sams death affected her future and her goals. 
I was originally intrigued by this book because of the aspect of reconnection to Sam through phone calls. But that actually turned out to be the least interesting part for most of the book. I really enjoyed when Julie was interacting with other people in sams life much more. I think that’s why I didn’t rate this higher. The phone calls with Sam didn’t get really interesting until about 80%. 
The ending did make me cry, although not as much as I was expecting. I also teared up many other times throughout. 
So, overall, it’s a pretty solid read and was an interesting book to begin reading to get me back into contemporary. I like the pain. 

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caseythereader's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Thanks to Wednesday Books for the free advance copy of this book.

- Well, you can probably tell from the summary above that this is the book to pick up if you want a good cry, and I can confirm that.
- YOU'VE REACHED SAM perfectly portrays all the confusing ways grief can manifest, ranging from anger to denial, pulling people closer and pushing people away.
- Personally, I don't mind books where the supernatural/magical elements aren't explained in any way: this is just a book that you have to accept the premise going in and simply follow where it takes you. It's worth it, I promise. 

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-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

4.0

This is about teenage girl dealing with guilt, grief, and loss. She's struggling with how her ways of dealing with her grief keep not fitting in with her friends and classmates who are grieving the same person, but not all quite the same loss. 

I kept thinking it was going to, at some point, explain how they were able to talk on the phone. The question was raised repeatedly, but Sam doesn't know and Julie never learns how or why it worked. I wish it hadn't felt like maybe the answer would appear, and I hope that anyone planning to read it can have a better experience from knowing not to wait for that reveal which never comes. Setting aside my longing for a literal answer, the way the connection manifested felt like it paralleled (and perhaps reinforced) the shape of Julie’s grief. That resonance was important and worked well in the story. It's very focused on her and her focus on Sam for much of the book, gradually showing more of her other connections and relationships as she's able to start thinking about people other than him and about things other than her loss. The change comes slowly enough to feel real and makes for a thoughtfully done and very poignant portrayal of grief.

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