The Book of Sam is an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride through a uniquely fantastical Hell. This is not the religious underworld you think it is. A cross-section between multiple worlds, Shapiro's Hell delivers a complex kingdom filled with diverse creatures of every moral shade. The vivid descriptions give the world a sense of realness while still being blanketed in obscure images like red-tinged skies and ash-covered streets.

Compared to this dark, exciting world, our "hero" Sam is a bit underwhelming, albeit purposefully so. Described numerous times as a failure who is "not really good at stuff", this book becomes a journey of both courage and heart. The classic hope-conquers-fear mantra is alive and well here. Aided by an unruly (far more interesting) cast of characters, Sam manages to completely botch several "missions" needing near constant rescue himself. The secondary characters are so intriguing and well developed that I often wished one of them were the protagonist, but Sam won me over by the end of the book.

The pacing of this book is brisk to say the least, which can be very exciting particularly in YA. Unfortunately, this book reads a bit like a road trip full of little pit-stop adventures. I would have liked to see more depth and detail to tease out the story and make it fuller. Additionally, for a book this short, there are a lot of named characters. Many of these characters exist for only a page or two and could simply have been "a beggar" or "her daughter". The blunt writing here lends itself more to Middle Grade fiction and I think this could have been much more successful (with a younger protagonist) in that level.

Fair warning: this book has a cliffhanger ending. I was not aware that this is a planned series upon my initial request of this book. However, I am intrigued enough by the world building and characters to read the next book.

*I received this ARC through Netgalley, so I would like to thank Netgalley, Mr. Shapiro and DunDurn Publishing for the opportunity to read this. All thoughts and opinions are my own*

Oh, Sam. I think all of us, at some point in time, either know or have been a Sam. That one guy or girl who is overlooked by family, bullied at school, crushing on the best friend. Sounds a bit cliche and The Book of Sam appears to start out a bit cliche for some readers, but Shapiro does attempt to turn the trope on its head. Sam, our hero, goes to Hell in order to rescue his best friend after a dirty dirty trick is played and from there, the adventure ensures.

I wanted to like Sam. I really did. However, Sam came off very unlikable for me despite his going into a very dangerous territory. For as smart as Sam appeared to be in the beginning, he did not do enough questioning for my own taste. Being in Hell, I would think, would bring about an immense onslaught of questions, but Sam just went with everything at face value. Even after being faced with the old adage of "Never meet your heroes" when freeing the demon Stolas proved to be less than, Sam still didn't learn enough to start asking.

It was a okay story for me. I think that Shapiro wove a fairly interesting plot even with the lack of character development and Sam's apparent ability to fall in love very easily, but the quality world building was fun. I honestly not expecting to have such an incredible setting in Hell and I appreciate Shapiro's outlook of it. I do look forward to reading another one of Shapiro's work at a later date, but no more Sams please.

Very Bland Story

I was quite interested in the story of The Book of Sam by Rob Shapiro. A story of a bullied kid that ends up going to the depths of Hell to save his one friend! It sounded like a fantastic story that a bullied kid could relate to, and make a fantastic YA novel. I was sorely disappointed.

This read was daunting even though the page count was below 300. The writing style was decent, but the characters felt very plastic, not fleshed out, and I didn’t really grow to like any of them. Many times I felt like Rob was borrowing ideas from other great fantasy stories. However, the execution was poor.

I really didn’t even want to finish this novel, and I really hope that another one doesn’t make it to press. With that said if there are any forthcoming “Sam” novels I will pass. I just couldn’t get into the headspace of any of the characters. I even tried to think as I did when I was a bullied teen, and it still didn’t resonate.

Overall, I felt like The Book of Sam was a very poor YA fantasy novel. The writing was fair, the story was sloppy, character development was very poor, and I simply wanted the book to end. I wouldn’t suggest this book to anyone personally, but possibly it may be a beacon of hope for a young teen or preteen to read.

All in all, I give The Book of Sam 2 ⭐️’s out of 5 ⭐️’s. It was not a great read, but I can honor the concept. The writing was alright as well, not great, but okay. I will not read another entry in this series if another arises though. Honestly, to say the least it was a bore.

I do want to thank #netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. I have done my very best to provide a fair and honest review. Also, thank you to #dundurnpress and #robshapiro #thebookofsam

This title read a bit more like a young reader novel than a young adult novel (except all the blood and demonic torture). It was quick and entertaining, but I wanted more character development throughout. Everything seemed to happen too easily and quickly for the protagonist.

I'd be curious to see what else this author has up his sleeve though.

I regret that this was a DNF for me. I'm not fond of fantasy, but I like quirky stories, so I thought I'd give it a try. I expected something like Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore or anything by Carl Hiaasen, and it wasn't. It was definitely fantasy, with all of the weird names and places I can never keep straight. Sorry!

The Book of Sam was a well written story with an interesting premise. The world building on this was excellent, which is always a big plus in my opinion. The authors imagery was fantastic and really made it all come to life. I felt Sam was well rounded and likeable though I didn't connect him very well, as I felt like there was no real story or true character growth. I felt like he was incredibly underprepared for his journey to hell and he himself is not overly useful. The book has a fairly open ending which was a bit of a let down.

This is a book that's.... fine? While I've certainly read worse YA fantasy, I've also read much, much better. The Book of Sam is an average, mediocre, 50%-engaging, type of book - and for some, that's fine. There wasn't anything really fantastic about the book, save for perhaps the writing style, which did incorporate unique imagery and vivid writing that I don't see too often in YA. The characters, the plot, the themes - all of them were so middling that I'm having a difficult time trying to pick any distinct elements to highlight in this review. The story arc feels unfinished (probably because, as the author has said on his Goodreads, he hopes to write a trilogy) and the resolution felt flat. Not much of it was meaningful beyond its own narrative, but if you're interested in fantasy, maybe give it a try. On the whole, I didn't hate reading this book, and I am glad I read it, but I don't have any interest in reading it again and wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to anyone else, either.

I got this ARC through Netgalley for reviewing purposes, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Overall 2,5 stars.

The book isn't bad, but it isn't the best either. It didn't capture me, but I didn't mind continuing on with it. I didn't love anything about the book, but again I didn't hate anything either. Some things did annoy me, but that was it. I guess to me the book was just okay. I probably won't read this again, but that's just me. I would definitely still recommend this book to other people. I'm just really critical, and don't "like" most of the books that I read.

The Book of Sam is about 16 year old Sam Sullinger, he is an average teenage boy, who is an introvert, insecure and shy. The only friend he has is also the girl he has a secret crush on. He is an outcast and gets bullied by everybody at school, at the behest of the popular boy Kyle whom has made it his life mission to ruin Sams life. And if Kyle isn't trying to ruin his life, then his father is right there ready to belittle him.
When he finally gets ready to confess his feelings to Harper his best friend, shit hits the fan. And with barely anybody willing to help, he does something he never thought he would do, he takes it upon himself to do whatever he can to save Harper.


The story starts of fast paced, which I liked. We quickly gets to know about the main character Sam, and his life, and we are also quickly thrown into the journey of going to hell. But some things about it did annoy me. The thing is that Sam goes to hell with no apparent plan as to how or what he should do to save Harper. Like a desperate naive 16 year old teen, he just throws himself headfirst into trouble, without really thinking, which on one hand I do understand, but on the other I found it really stupid

How do you expect to save someone from hell by only bringing a couple of books, one knife and a snack. He could at least have brought water, a flashlight and perhaps a first aid kit, not that my suggestions are that much better than what he brought along lol.

But you understand what I'm getting at? Sam doesn't really plan anything, he just does things and hopes for the best. He is 16 years old and desperate to save his best friend from hell, with no life experience. All he has to help him navigate hell is, the books he used to read as a child about hell and his hero Stolas. And a thing he forgets is that the books are just stories, it doesn't mean that it's the truth.


Anyhow along the way Sam finds other companions that helps him with finding Harper. One of the companions is pretty useless, at least most of the time, but I did like that character, he was very endering to me. The other one at least has a brain and knows how to fight, as for Sam himself, he is also quite useless and naive. Sometimes I wondered if Sam was even using his brain, but I might just be too harsh on him. We do get some character development from Sam, which is nice. Sam goes from being insecure and pretty much useless to a more confident and strong minded person. It does take a while, due to how big his insecurities are. Actually it takes almost the whole book before there is any real character development with Sam, and I still found him pretty useless.

The world building of Hell is described differently than other stories. It's not just a burning pit and people being tortured by Satan. For some reason I visualised hell, as the wild west. And I don't know why, but I imagined that some of the demons looked like Randall Boggs, the chameleon from Monsters Inc, wearing, cowboy gear, you know the cowboy hat, boots and gun holsters, or maybe I'm just thinking of Rango. Matter of fact I visualised the characters from Monsters Inc as the demons in this book, for some unknown reason, and of course they all looked like cowboys in my head. Which is utterly ridiculous, since they aren't actually described as looking anything similar to the Monsters Inc characters.
The demons in this world are also described completely different to what the "norm" is. They look different, though some demons do look somewhat similar to what we are "used" to demons looking like, e.g horns on their heads, evil, enjoys pain. In this book the demons aren't all just evil, there are good ones too. They are slaves, lovers, friends, they work at bars, they own small shops ect.

The book has an open ending bordering on a cliffhanger, which I don't mind too much. At the moment this is a stand alone, but in the future it might possibly turn into a trilogy (I asked on Goodreads and that was the answer Shapiro gave)
If it does become a trilogy then I will definitely be reading the next books :)

The demon Thorlton, in my head I imagined Mike Warzowski but with two eyes. Actually everybody of the same race as Thorlton, I visualised as Mike Warzowski. The females I just imagined with brown hair with bangs and pigtails.

I was greatly surprised by this book.

The world-building is very different and creative and explain very well that it felt very vivid for me. (The best part of the book was the world the this author created).
I like the story in general and will most likely pick up some other books from this author in the future.

Thank you to net galley for sending me a copy of the book of Sam. I guess I didn’t really know quite what this was about but I was definitely no interested in it. I wish I was able to love this book but I might read more by this author

Rating: 2.5 rounded up to 3 stars

Opinions: The Book of Sam was precisely okay. There wasn't anything wrong with it, but there wasn't anything fantastic about it either. It was average, mediocre, standard. Every element - characters, setting, plot, themes, writing style - was 50% engaging, resonating, and satisfying, which is enough to finish the book but not enough to love it. What else is there to say? I'm glad I read it but I definitely won't read it again.

My Favourite Thing: For me, the writing style was the most compelling element. Imagery was an abundant device in The Book of Sam. Shapiro did not hold back describing anything, no matter how beautiful or how bloody it was. My senses were stimulated and my face was cringing at the accurate and consistent world building. Shapiro's imagery and style was the most immersive element of The Book of Sam!

My Least Favourite Thing: The reason The Book of Sam is average in my eyes is because there was plot but no story. The absence of a story arc disengaged me and made it difficult to see character development, themes, and other features necessary in a good book. In my opinion, not much of the book was meaningful or essential.

Recommended For and Similar Reads: The Book of Sam has a lot of potential to be a horrific, religious (without the controversy!), and fantastical story for teens. We can't forget that there's another 50% that is good, so make sure to check it out! Similar reads are Dreamfall by Amy Plum, Power and Fury by James Erith, Lullaby of Flames by Candace Robinson, Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman, or CW's "Supernatural" television show!

This book was so adorably good and well-crafted. Especially the worldbuilding of hell and the character design.
I love that the protagonist isn’t a super powerful Chosen kinda guy. And it was so nice, that the demons, which Sam encountered could be evil or good - and had their own personality.
And I absolutely love Sams development over the story and him growing confident.
This was a really nice read with amazing characters, a well-crafted world and an entertaining story.

A young boy travels to hel to save his best friend.

This was an interesting story. I feel that it was overwhelmingly just sad. From what his new friend he meets in hel has gone through all the way to the ending was just sad. Some stories leave you feeling uplifted and happy, but this one leaves you wanting the author to release the next book in the series immediately so you can reach a happy conclusion.

I have to say, I did like this book. I waited to start it for a while, but I liked it. I was hesitant about the whole "journey to Hell" aspect since similar things have been done a lot, but the world-building in this one was very different and very creative. I thought the characters were also really strong, too. I didn't think that Sam was a great character, but he was well-developed and I was dedicated to the others. I didn't find any plot holes either. Despite all of these good things, I didn't really get into the book. I don't know why, I thought it was good, but I didn't feel like it was my type of book.
I would mainly recommend this book to people who like traditional heroes' journeys and fantasy in general. I've read a lot of "storybook come true" books and I felt like this is good for people who like those too. I give this book a mediocre rating not because it's a bad book, but because I didn't connect with it. I did like the book, I just didn't love it enough to rate it higher.

I accidentally requested this and was approved, so I thought I may as well give it a shot. But about 1/4 of the way in, when Sam begins his journey to Hell to find Harper, I knew this wasn't for me. Objectively, I know there will be many readers who will enjoy and have fun with this story, especially because Sam is such a relatable character, but this type of magical realism/urban fantasy just isn't my kind of thing.

Sam is a very relatable character, he is insecure, in love with his best friend Harper and has trouble at home.
I had fun reading his story since he isn't the typical hero material.
I think Uncle Bear was one of my favorite characters, from the way he was portrayed to his relationship with Sam.
And while I enjoyed the book there were still passages I skipped because they seemed to not really add something vital to Sam's journey.
Overall, the Book of Sam is fresh and has a very relatable MC.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was good. I was a little wary that it would be a thin boy’s adventure with the hot girl crush being awarded like a prize at the end, but it had far more nuance than that. Sam is an endearing character and his arc is well developed, going from shy awkwardness to confidence in himself – although going to hell is an extreme way to learn to have faith in yourself! I ended up having a lot of fun with this book and would definitely read the next one.