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A review by keybladium
You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao
1.0
A book with no substance nor emotion other than death is sad.
I mostly always enjoy most books I read and it’s very rare that I would ever rate something so low but I just didn’t find a single moment in this book to be enjoyable nor immersive. I went into this book with no expectations and was still underwhelmed after finishing.
There’s a lot of problems to address which I think one of the big ones for me is that nothing is really descriptive, I can’t remember any character descriptions and the scenery descriptions were so vague or just non existent that it made it so hard to visualize or immerse myself because I have no clue where to begin other than it’s a forest, lake or school. The only scenery described was the book store and that was actually described really well and the only moment in the book I could start to feel immersed but considering most of the book takes place elsewhere, it wasn’t really something I could overlook.
The other big problem is that the main character is just not likeable at all. She’s very self absorbed and selfish and whilst grieving is different for everyone, I don’t believe it should justify any of her actions and she’s just very bland of a character too. She’s always contradicting herself and her actions do not match how she describes her feelings for Sam most of the time such as throwing away all his things, getting angry at him over the phone and pretty much everything she does in the book. Everyone in the book just acts so unnatural and fake and I didn’t like a single character nor enjoy any of their interactions. Friendships felt so random, interactions felt forced and I just didn’t care for any of it.
Some more minor but distracting things for me were the flashbacks were so badly implemented. It was like a film’s montage but without the visual presentation so it was very unclear when one scene ends and another begins. The amount of times I had to reread sentences just to make sense of what was happening and where the transitions were. And the flashbacks served no importance nor exposition at all, they were placed in really random places and weren’t referred to at any point.
Lots of things weren’t explained well either imo. I didn’t know anything about the book at all going into it so I didn’t know Sam died but the author didn’t make that clear at all for people who didn’t read the blurb or synopsis. I believed they just broke up because of the wording and Julie’s actions of throwing his things away and wanting to forget but it was randomly dropped in the middle of a sentence that he was dead and it took me by surprise as to what was happening. And this happened throughout the entire book, things just weren’t explained well and the few “mysteries” or more interesting elements never had an explanation and was just super underwhelming. How did Sam and Julie become connected again? Well after 200+ pages of setting it up and constantly bringing up the question every other sentence, it was never explained. I really don’t understand the message or what the book was trying to do, it wasn’t a good tragedy, romance, mystery, drama book and it wasn’t a good representation of grief either, I can’t define what this book is other than words on a page that failed to inflict any emotion or response.
Lots of things that happened were just super convenient or to add some conflict into the story such as Julie *always* missing any event planned. It was getting repetitive that Julie would plan something and try to move on just to miss it because of the same reasons every time. Whenever a plan came up every chapter, it was super predictable what was going to happen and it never strayed from that. The conflicts were just boring and unoriginal, it felt like the story was trying to go into supernatural whilst trying to be realistic at the same time and nothing worked for me.
Overall, there’s just nothing positive that I personally experienced with this book and so far is the most blandest and boring book I’ve read. It really felt like this book has no soul at all, just words on a page. I really don’t leaving negative reviews and I always try to enjoy everything I read even if it’s something not really for me but I just couldn’t get any enjoyment out of this one.
I mostly always enjoy most books I read and it’s very rare that I would ever rate something so low but I just didn’t find a single moment in this book to be enjoyable nor immersive. I went into this book with no expectations and was still underwhelmed after finishing.
There’s a lot of problems to address which I think one of the big ones for me is that nothing is really descriptive, I can’t remember any character descriptions and the scenery descriptions were so vague or just non existent that it made it so hard to visualize or immerse myself because I have no clue where to begin other than it’s a forest, lake or school. The only scenery described was the book store and that was actually described really well and the only moment in the book I could start to feel immersed but considering most of the book takes place elsewhere, it wasn’t really something I could overlook.
The other big problem is that the main character is just not likeable at all. She’s very self absorbed and selfish and whilst grieving is different for everyone, I don’t believe it should justify any of her actions and she’s just very bland of a character too. She’s always contradicting herself and her actions do not match how she describes her feelings for Sam most of the time such as throwing away all his things, getting angry at him over the phone and pretty much everything she does in the book. Everyone in the book just acts so unnatural and fake and I didn’t like a single character nor enjoy any of their interactions. Friendships felt so random, interactions felt forced and I just didn’t care for any of it.
Some more minor but distracting things for me were the flashbacks were so badly implemented. It was like a film’s montage but without the visual presentation so it was very unclear when one scene ends and another begins. The amount of times I had to reread sentences just to make sense of what was happening and where the transitions were. And the flashbacks served no importance nor exposition at all, they were placed in really random places and weren’t referred to at any point.
Lots of things weren’t explained well either imo. I didn’t know anything about the book at all going into it so I didn’t know Sam died but the author didn’t make that clear at all for people who didn’t read the blurb or synopsis. I believed they just broke up because of the wording and Julie’s actions of throwing his things away and wanting to forget but it was randomly dropped in the middle of a sentence that he was dead and it took me by surprise as to what was happening. And this happened throughout the entire book, things just weren’t explained well and the few “mysteries” or more interesting elements never had an explanation and was just super underwhelming. How did Sam and Julie become connected again? Well after 200+ pages of setting it up and constantly bringing up the question every other sentence, it was never explained. I really don’t understand the message or what the book was trying to do, it wasn’t a good tragedy, romance, mystery, drama book and it wasn’t a good representation of grief either, I can’t define what this book is other than words on a page that failed to inflict any emotion or response.
Lots of things that happened were just super convenient or to add some conflict into the story such as Julie *always* missing any event planned. It was getting repetitive that Julie would plan something and try to move on just to miss it because of the same reasons every time. Whenever a plan came up every chapter, it was super predictable what was going to happen and it never strayed from that. The conflicts were just boring and unoriginal, it felt like the story was trying to go into supernatural whilst trying to be realistic at the same time and nothing worked for me.
Overall, there’s just nothing positive that I personally experienced with this book and so far is the most blandest and boring book I’ve read. It really felt like this book has no soul at all, just words on a page. I really don’t leaving negative reviews and I always try to enjoy everything I read even if it’s something not really for me but I just couldn’t get any enjoyment out of this one.