User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
this book… i am lost for words.
crying, screaming, banging my head on the wall, ripping my hair out, running in the rain, slowly sliding down a door after slamming it. omg this book hurt but it was so good.
the writing was enticing and beautiful.
this book quite literally made my heart ache, it wouldn’t be still my beating heart. the grief in this book just put tears to my eyes and now i feel like i need to turn my life around and get my shit together.
this book isn’t heavy on plot at all so don’t go in looking for that but the characters and the writing is what makes this a 5 star read, i was so invested.
i love these characters and i loved this story with all my heart.
plz look up TWs if you need to. honestly if you lost a loved one recently or someone very close to you, proceed with caution bc this book may not be for you ❤️
Rating: really liked it
This. was. so. GOOD. I expected this to break my heart, and it definitely delivered on that front. I read an MTV book waaaay back in the day called I Heart You, You Haunt Me, and this felt like a more modern version of that. I loved that book when I read it so that left me really excited for this one. I loved how it jumped between then and now so there was a full look at Sam and Julie's relationship. It was really intense for how short it was but I found their love super believable, which made it all the more heartbreaking. I think Julie's struggles with grief seemed like an accurate depiction to me, and one that you don't see often in books. It makes her a bit of an unlikeable character which was an interesting twist. Seeing her transformation throughout the book made me root for her all the more. For me this book definitely lived up to the hype and was a super strong debut!
Rating: really liked it
they say if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
anyway, that's my review.
(thanks to netgalley for the e-copy)
Rating: really liked it
3.5 ⭐️
I enjoyed this! not as emotional as I was expecting, but the ending was beautiful
Rating: really liked it
a really sweet, sentimental story that is dampened by an unlikable main character.
i honestly wanted to cut julie some slack in the beginning. grieving is an incredibly personal process and everyone handles it differently, so i was willing to tolerate a lot of her anger. but then i realised shes just as selfish and rude in the flashbacks. so its not her grief and sorrow thats making her lash out and treat everyone like crap, thats just who she is and it makes for a very frustrating and unenjoyable book.
which is such a shame because i think the story at its heart is a really good one and one i think will resonate with any reader who has ever struggled with letting someone go and moving on. the last chapter and epilogue are really quite touching, its just that i know i would have emotionally felt more if i had cared about julie. but i didnt. and sam deserved better, tbh.
but overall, still a decent debut and im interested in seeing what DT comes up with next!
thank you st. martins press/wednesday books for the ARC!↠ 3.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
Oh my God! This tear jerker, the most emotional read of the year is finally out! Happy pub day!🥳🥂
I knew this book will break me into pieces. I knew it would slice my heart into tiny pieces. I knew it would hurt like hell since I read the blurb! But I eventually requested and I am still happy to read this extremely heartfelt beauty even though I’m an emotional mess right now!
This is story Julie and Sam! They are only seventeen but they seem like they figured out everything about their futures. They have bigger plans. Julie wants to be successful author as Sam wants to be great musician. They will leave the town, renting an apartment in the big city, going to Japan for holiday for meeting Sam’s grandparents. But... they cannot do any of them. Sam is gone!
Julie tries to erase their memories not to hurt anymore, throwing Sam’s belongings, rejecting to go to the funeral, rejecting to communicate with anyone, actually she rejects to say goodbye! She is not ready to leave him forever! And guess what: Sam is not ready to leave her, too!
When she hits the rock bottom, she calls Sam and he picks up the phone. Yes, she PICKS UP and it’s ABSOLUTELY SAM! But HOW IT COULD BE POSSIBLE! How can they communicate? But they actually do.
Sam still has things to show her, presents to share and Julie slowly adjusts in life before Sam. Telling their secret phone calls to anyone can mean they can be disconnected forever! So Julie cannot risk it by sharing with Sam’s loved ones who are struggling badly like her. But what about Mika! They were best friends and she slowly drifts away. She’s in deep pain. She thinks Julie already moved on her life, forgetting Sam, making plans to leave the city. But how can Julie leave Sam? One day she has to say goodbye because their connection on the phone gets weaker at each day. Can she handle to say last goodbye!
Let me tell you something: this book tells the grief so naturally, genuinely. You hear all the characters. You emphasize with their pain. You want to hug them, spending time with them, telling them it’s gonna be okay even though it is never gonna be because pain of losing someone is lifetime suffer. Sometimes it lessens, sometimes it blasts like you put more gasoline into fire. It always hurt but in some way you learn to deal with it. You have to deal with it to move on! Even though it hurts like hell we should hold the memories we shared like life buoy like Julie did!
No more words: I’m still crying. My emotions are everywhere! I need at least one hour to gather my feelings but I’m telling you something just read this powerful beauty and meet those amazing characters! The pain you endure, the sadness you need to overcome are truly worth it!
Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/ Wednesday Books for sharing this excellent digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.
Rating: really liked it
This book broke me.
You've Reached Sam is a fantastic debut. It is an emotional journey, that will having you crying, laughing, then crying again. And again. I cried a lot.
One thing I loved was the characters. The story begins after Sam's death, and our protagonist, his girlfriend Julie, is grieving. She isn't the most likable character in these early chapters, and that made me love the book even more. Grief is messy. It's painful and can turn you into someone you don't recognize. And I love that Dustin Thao did not shy away from this. Julie's journey is incredible, and the use of some magical aspects only enhances it. The other characters are equally well-rounded, and each has their own development. I especially loved Sam as a character. We learn more and more about him and Julie's past as the story goes on, which just adds to the pain you feel over his death.
And this book is painful. In the best possible way. I cried over 9 times in only 300 pages. Towards the end, I couldn't even keep try of exactly how many times I cried because it was just a constant stream of tears.
This book will be one that will stick with me forever, and I would recommend it to anyone who's looking for an emotional and beautiful read.
Rating: really liked it
“You called me.” His voice is as calm as water. “And I picked up. Like I always do.”
Following a teenage girl who lost her boyfriend to a car accident and magically gained a final opportunity to speak to him through phone calls, the haunting premise of You’ve Reached Sam promised an emotionally devastating study of grief, loss, and letting go. While I appreciated its depiction of the different ways people grieve and cope, never shying away from what might not be the cleanest, most acceptable forms of grief,
I unfortunately didn’t feel very connected to the story or emotionally affected by it. There is poignant, heartbreaking beauty to be found in this book, certainly, but this is a story that you feel all or nothing for—and unfortunately, it was erring on the side of nothing for me.
Julie was an interesting character to follow, and though I didn’t quite love
her specifically, I did love what Thao explored with her. To me, it was not an issue that she was “unlikeable” or “annoying” as other readers might call her, because her story was about working through her grief in whatever forms it might have been, whether or not it was kind to herself or others. I thought
her arc was a beautiful examination of learning how to hold on to people after they’ve gone, without holding them or herself back. The fact that Julie becomes a bit insensitive and prickly is a testament to the exceptional ways a loss of a loved one can affect people, especially when juxtaposed with how others grieve for Sam.
“We have too many voices inside our heads. You have to pick out the ones that mean something to you. What story do you want to tell?”
Sam, on the other hand, completely lacked dimension until the ending, perhaps because we only see him through the lens of Julie and her grief, so he was less of an actual, rounded person and more of a figure. Because Sam was not well-fleshed out, his relationship with Julie fell flat for me. I mostly didn’t feel that they truly loved each other to the extent that Julie was making it out to be, and sometimes I even thought that Julie had approached their relationship in an unhealthy way (before Sam’s death). And since their romance is the focal point of the story yet I felt no emotional connection to it,
the entire book failed to make an impact on me. Most of the sadness I felt over You’ve Reached Sam was a result of the general concepts of death and grief being tragic, rather than Julie and Sam’s specific story being particularly sad to me. A loved one dying at such a young age is surely horrifying, but the specificities of Julie and Sam’s relationship didn’t make it any more emotionally devastating for me.
In fact, if you’re not emotionally invested in this book, you probably will not enjoy it, because the plot is a bit repetitive (and the beginning is particularly stagnant). Though Thao explores the relationships Julie has with other people, mainly those also affected by Sam’s death, this is more
the story of Julie’s personal growth in relation to grief and letting go. And since I lacked a strong connection to the story most of the time, the book felt dragged out even though I knew the character development that was taking place. There really isn’t much else to latch on to as an uninvested reader; the writing is sometimes beautiful with its imagery, and other times leaves much to be desired with its clunkiness and lack of emotion. And though the other side characters and the way their grieving intersects with Julie’s are interesting, they aren’t given a lot of page time in favor of focusing on Julie’s arc.
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.
You’ve Reached Sam is truly a book I feel will be either a complete hit or miss, depending on the extent of its emotional influence on you. Though I do love how it portrayed how many shapes someone’s grief can take, and I was touched by some heartbreaking scenes (especially the end), those were pretty much the only highlights for me and they were not enough to make up for the considerable indifference I felt over the majority of the book. I wouldn’t particularly encourage nor discourage reading this book, since I genuinely feel that it will be different for each person. But I think
if you intimately know the impossible struggles of having to move on from and let go of a loved one, this might be a book you find a deep connection with. I, unfortunately, was unable to find that.
—★—
:: representation :: Japanese American LI, Japanese American character, Thai mlm side character, Vietnamese side character, gay side character
:: content warnings :: death of loved one, depiction of grief, car accident// buddy read with krisha!
Thank you to Macmillan for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! This did not affect my opinions in any way.
All quotes are from an advanced copy and may differ in final publication.
Rating: really liked it
I would say do not expect too much from the book. It's young adult and it deals with some heavy topics regarding death and grief. Take your time.
Well... I stopped caring about the characters and the whole thing about Sam when I reached half the book.
What went wrong?
But first, what was done right.
The writing is gripping. The characters are relatable. They are realistic. They are the age they are. The grief and the emotions felt so real. There are tears and guilt and regrets. Yes, you will feel connected to the writing, the characters and the emotions.
However, the plot kept stretching too much that the second half didn't feel that important. The story could have been much shorter. The side characters somehow felt disconnected from the main story and the main characters.
The cover is just beautiful and I am really glad it's related to the story and the main characters.
The hype couldn't live up. It's okay. The writing is good and the main characters seem real. That's the best part.
Rating: really liked it
"I miss you"
"I miss you too. I miss you infinity." *Deep breaths* 😭💔 *deep breaths* 😭💔
*Uncontrollable sobbing*
I hate this so much. But I love this so much. I know it doesn't make sense. It was painful, heartbreakingly beautiful, and so real to deal with regret, grief and loss.
I started off with this book feeling very little connection to Sam and Julie but once I crossed the 100 page mark, and we got to see more of their time together, it was so easy to fall in love with the characters. To think and hope like Julie, that somehow Sam will stay.
I did not care much for the supporting characters, except for maybe Mika. I wish we could've seen more of Sam's family, we only got to see little bit of James. I also wish we could've known what happens to Sam after the calls end. It's obvious that he moves on, but it's more to do with growing attached to his character that as a reader it wasn't easy to let go.
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.
After finishing this book, I just had to stop and cry. It's hands down one of my favourite books of the year and even a lifetime. I don't think I would read this again anytime soon but whenever I do in the future, I hope I love it the same.
Rating: really liked it
You’ll sob your heart out.
Couldn’t breathe in the last few pages. Good luck 🥲
Rating: really liked it
[Long review incoming]*Thank you to the publisher -Wednesday Books- and the author -Dustin Thao- for sending me an ARC to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.* You’ve Reached Sam is basically about the question “what if you get a chance to talk to someone who has already passed?”.
Like a lot of other reviewers, I'm sad to say that I was also disappointed as it didn’t really live up to my expectations of a mystical and, though heart-breaking, still a fulfilling read. It made me wish that they didn’t compare it to Kimi no Nawa because I think it ended up hurting this book more. I did still enjoy it for what it was but I found myself waiting for that drop of awe that never happened.
First things first, I’ve been seeing some reviewers label this as
Ownvoices when it isn’t (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just mislabeled). If I’m analyzing it correctly, Obayashi (Sam’s last name) is a Japanese name, even their other friend Yuki sounds Japanese and the author is Vietnamese. Based on other aspects of the story (cherry blossoms, anime, lanterns, the fact that he visited his grandparents in Japan, etc.) it was obvious to me that the author wanted to point out the Japanese inspirations in the story. Let’s not equate
Ownvoices as something that a book
needs to be in order to be considered good nor should it be used just because both the author and the character is Asian.
with that out of the way…
The best part about this book is Julie’s character arcs over losing and moving on from her first love. In my opinion, it was one of the best written character storylines (in terms of progression and what was tackled) revolving around grief that I have read in a while. With that said, it’s definitely a heavy read, especially in the beginning and you really feel the anguish and frustration that Julie is going through. My emotions were in sync with Julie’s, in a way.
But I was immensely disappointed by the Your Name/Kimi no Nawa comp because the only thing they had in common was that they both have a magical realism aspect (that wasn’t even similar in their mechanisms). Which is not enough, in my opinion, to say that this book is reminiscent of Your Name. I loved Your Name for the intensity and mystery of the fantasy that was given a *gasping-out-loud-while-crying-your-eyes-out* explanation by the end and the journey that we were on from BOTH characters' perspectives, which we didn’t really get here.
“If the ending is this painful, I don’t know if this was worth it all.”
The romance in Your Name was effective in that we were able to slowly watch the connection build up between the characters before the heart-wrenching part happens (if you watched it, you know what i mean). Here it was kind of done the other way around and while I think the premise was really promising and interesting,
I had a hard time feeling a connection to Sam and Julie like I did with the main characters in it’s anime comp.
Don’t get me wrong, I did end up crying in two distinct parts so I’m not saying that this made me feel like I had a heart of stone. It’s definitely still capable of bringing out feelings of sadness but maybe not enough. You know it's sad but you move on very easily from it like "yeah that was sad" and read on. Which I feel like should not be the goal? xD
There were more than a few parts that annoyed me. Given this is young adult, the immature scenarios and personalities are slightly understandable but i don’t think the “mean kids” and other “mean people” were flushed out or written very well. It honestly felt like they were just there to provide additional conflict when I think the book could have done without them or if their personalities were more subtle/nuanced/implied. It felt very “in your face” and I didn’t enjoy that. Especially since I don’t think that part of the plot was given proper closure either. There were certain plot decisions that i wasn’t happy about because they felt like cop outs. It added an aspect that did not match the atmosphere I was hoping for.
I did really love the development of Julie's friendship with the other characters. It was heart-warming to watch. Though I think too much was going on and a storyline such as this would have benefitted with less issues but were delved into more deeply.
The main problem that I feel like this book had was that the conflict was coming from too many different areas that the story had a hard time pulling that together at the end. I’m going to once again bring up Your Name since it’s everywhere in the promotion of this book and it’s hard not to compare it when they do that… but in that movie the characters are mostly fighting against this natural phenomenon and that’s really where the main conflict was. And although multiple conflicts isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, it needs to form a cohesive storyline that comes full circle in the end…. which was what Your Name was able to do successfully but this particular plot failed to see through, in my opinion.
Additionally,
part of what made Kimi no Nawa so heartfelt is how unflinchingly set it was in Japanese culture. From the fantastical aspect, to behavioral patterns, setting, and character dynamics. It was easy to see the details and thought put into it that it added another layer of realism to the story. Which was
another aspect that this book lacked since the most we got was Sam going to Japan a few times, mention of cherry blossoms, an Asian Film Club, and some lanterns… all of which didn’t really play that big of a part in the plot though it did somewhat do things for character development.
“Now I can’t wait to move on and make new memories with you. Just don’t forget the ones we made here.”
I’m being nitpicky here but I just naturally become one when I’m sent ARCs. There was a line that implied that songs about love weren’t good and it was never directly taken back by the character who said it even though it was
sort of implied in a separate scene. Based on the message of the story, I don’t think that’s what the author meant to do but I hope they fix that in edits. I don’t know if I’m just a little more sensitive to the musical aspect because I’m a musician but that just left a bad taste in my mouth.
In a writing style standpoint, this had the magical realism aspect that Your Name has but as a reader, it lacked the connection and heart-fulfilling moments that I feel every time I watch Kimi no Nawa.
↣
Again, this is a heavy book that brings that mood with it a big part of the way through. So I suggest not reading this until you are in the mood for something more heavy-hearted and slow-paced. I do think this is the kind of book that can affect someone’s life if read at the right time and in the right circumstances. Just please stop comparing it to Your Name, I don't think they are anything alike. ↢
— 2.5 —⇢
content warnings// Grief, Death, Physical Harassment ⤜
pre-read review ⤛
update: ARC has been secured 😌
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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.
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I don't know if my heart can take the sadness of the actual story, but we're going to read it anyway.
November TBR population: 1..........IM OKAY. IM NOT SAD. AT ALL.
Rating: really liked it
i am kind of very disappointed
Rating: really liked it
When I picked You've Reached Sam I was ready to be emotionally wracked. Just reading the premise I expected to be at least touched with the story, if not literally crying (because I don't do that often).
Instead, most of the time, this book made me feel... confused.
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.
I blame the execution for that part. The idea was good.
I also blame the main character who seriously lacked manners and empathy.
I also didn't understand how she, and people around her, acted as if everyone should move on so quickly. She getting rid of all of her stuff, her mother advising her and people in school in general. One would say it's been 6 months since Sam's accident, not a week.
The book was written in first person, following Julie's POV.
The author's voice was good and I believe with time it will improve with time.
In my opinion this was a solid ya book with magical elements that made it unique, and it was good for entertainment purpose.
Rating: really liked it
This is such a raw, powerful story. Julie being right at the end of the high school, with all the plans that Sam had, it really felt like a double death - not just Sam, but all of the future plans they made, the colleges they planned to attend and the apartment she dreamed of them living in as adults is all washed away too.
You've Reached Sam isn't without it's flaws - I felt like the adults in Julie's life never fully gave her the space I would expect for someone who's boyfriend of three years has just died and there were moments when the story wouldn't quite hit the level of emotion needed.
However, the final chapter before the epilogue was so perfectly written, so devastating, that I stopped being able to see the screen through the fog of tears. This book was an anticipated read for me for many months, and I'm so happy to say that it didn't let me down.
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this book already broke my heart and i haven't read it
AND THE COVER???!!!
