My heart is utterly broken. I've said that about other books and it doesn't compare to this one. I absolutely love the aesthetics that are coming through in this novel (now that cover makes so much more sense! and even more heartbreaking!) By the end, you're just numb from the heartache and the angst. The whole novel is steeped in grief and the lesson taught is one of the hardest to digest but it's well-meant.

You've Reached Sam is a beautiful, heartwarming story of a young girl learning to live through her grief. It's a story of growth, and moreover of how to deal when life appends all your plans and expectations.

Characters- Julie, our main character, is a very realistic and flawed character. She is a complicated mess of feelings after her boyfriend, Sam's death.
And as you see her grappling with that sense of loss, you also see her struggling with all the things of everyday life, like maintaining friendships, graduation, college applications...
It just forces her to realise that the world doesn't just stop for everyone even if it feels like it has collapsed for you.
Also, I also appreciated that the side characters were really well-developed. All of Julie's friends seem like they could all have their own book.

QUOTE-
I missed you. I missed you infinity.

Writing- The writing, and I feel so bad saying this😅, but I didn't expect it to be so good, for some reason, but the writing was wonderful!
It had this really spring-time, atmospheric feel to it. It was very vivid, and I really enjoyed it.

This book is less of a love story and more magical realism I guess if I had to classify it into a genre the fans of the bookstore nation colour of after by Emily X aap and are going to love this even though getting calls from a dead person sounds Visa at first I could understand by Julie believed it and accepted it that even though I wouldn't necessarily do the same thing I understood the frame of mind and how she must have felt at that moment.

QUOTE-
“Who are you writing for again?” Mr. Lee asks, arching a brow. He asked me this before. I know the answer he wants to hear. I write for myself. I'm not sure what this really means, though. I can't help caring about what people think, especially about my writing. "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?”

Representation- The Asian representation in this book is fantastic! Both the main characters are Asian- American, and the way their culture was incorporated is so well done.

THEMES- The author does a really good job of portraying how grief isn't a definite thing. It doesn't really come to you in those orderly stages of shock, anger or guilt. It's more of a confused muddle of emotions hitting you at different times.
I feel like this will be such a relatable rate for anyone who's going through the pain of losing a loved one or has gone through it especially in these times.

The Quick Cut: A teen girl grapples with mourning over her recently deceased boyfriend when she gets a call from him.

A Real Review:
Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing the ARC for an honest review.

Grief has a way of sneaking up on you and surprising your closest friends and family. Some try to pretend it doesn't affect while others lean so hard into it that they can't do anything but mourn. For Julie, she can't face the present now that her boyfriend Sam is gone.

Julie is seventeen years old and on the verge of adulthood. She's planned her life plans around her boyfriend Sam. When he does unexpectedly, all those plans disappear (along with her interest in the rest of her life). She refuses to go to the funeral, gets rid of all of his things, and tries to do what she can to keep going. It all fails... until she finally calls Sam's phone to hear his voicemail one last time and he picks up. How is this possible? Can she get him back?

Death and loss are something we all go through at some point in life. How we deal with those says a lot about our strength of character. No offense, but our lead character Julie epically fails that test when her boyfriend Sam does.

Julie literally drops everything in her life and refuses to let anyone be there for her. I can't say I really wanted her to make it to the other side of her grief at any given point. She's one of those people who drops everything when she's dating a guy. When he died, a part of her seemed to as well. I do appreciate that she did bring a plethora of Asian representation to this story though.

The part that really made me not enjoy the story is the fact that there really wasn't anything unique about the book. Death happens. Grief hots hard. What unique story did this tell? I couldn't find it.

A book about death that says nothing new.

My rating: 2 out of 5

Let me preface by saying, that I am not much of a YA reader or a romance reader, the latter being because I don't tend to like happily ever after endings. That being said, I had high hopes that I would like YOU'VE REACHED SAM because... I mean, based on the premise the ending had to be a little more complicated than happily ever after, right?

Unfortunately, everything about this book fell flat for me. There are frequent flashbacks to Sam and Julie's time together to try to build our connection to the couple, but they didn't do anything for me. The writing was plain and did nothing to stir any real emotion.

Based on what I've seen, Thao drew some inspiration from Makoto Shinkai movies, and I can tell he was trying to evoke that same feeling of loneliness, grief, and melancholy of those movies. The reason I think this failed is that movies are able to leverage soundtracks, acting, and visuals to create help get the viewer immersed and invested. Obviously, books cannot leverage these same elements and the storytelling of YOU'VE REACHED SAM did nothing to compensate for this. It was a lot of telling and no showing, which made me feel distanced and uninvested in the story.

I adored this book.

It started off right in the middle of it, with Julie struggling after her boyfriend Sam has passed away. You don't immediately find out how it happened, but she begins reminiscing on their relationship and how she met him before he picks up the phone one day when she calls his voicemail.

Throughout this you watch Julie spiral more and more into depression, she relies on these phone calls with her dead boyfriend to get through things while she feels like her friends can't understand her. In fact, I feel like a lot of people don't take the time to really understand how much more difficult it is for her, versus them. At one point her friend Mika makes a point to tell Julie they all lost him, not just her, and although I completely understand that, everyone feels grief in different ways.

As Julie continues these phone calls she goes through important times in their relationship while falling in love with him all over again, you just know it's going to end in heartbreak.
This story is not really a love story, it's one about letting go of the past and trying to move forward.

Overall I loved this and I teared up a lot, I like that even though Julie was difficult to be around, her friends stayed there for her. She also had the time and space to grow, to realise she wasn't the only one feeling the grief. I think that the middle of the book was a bit long, where nothing much happened, but overall this isn't a super long book so it wasn't slow enough for me to even consider putting down.

By far one of my favourite books this year, 5/5.

I appreciated this book more than I can explain. Julie’s grief was so realistically written that I felt what she was feeling. I cried when she cried. I loved Sam’s character and I especially liked that even though he has passed we still got to learn about him, his life, friend group - what made him Sam basically. At times Julie did irritate me but that’s explainable.

I do think that some parts could’ve been explained better or made clearer, and the writing more mature because at some points it came across as very mediocre but overall I really enjoyed this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for access to the eARC!

I need to stop putting myself through these kind of books. They literally break my heart and leave me in tears without fail.

But with that being said, it was a really good read. Thao wrote a real and raw perspective on a girl grieving the loss of her boyfriend and i loved how honestly it was portrayed. Grief comes in all forms and it was clear to see how it was displayed by the different characters that knew and loved Sam.

Julie was written in a way where even though her decisions and actions could come across annoying, they were so real from the point of view of grieving high schooler who just lost her first love. It would have been nice to be shown how Mika and Sam’s family dealt with the grief (some of which was shown through James). It was good to see Julie finally moving on in the end and I thought Sam was placed in the story really well too. He never did answer the questions that Julie had but I guess it makes sense since no one really knows.

I loved the mentions of Japanese culture in the story as I found they were well placed.

Oh and the voicemail had me in tears of course. But I did enjoy this book!

You’ve Reached Sam wrecked me. I knew what was coming yet I still plunged head-first into this beautifully painful story about a teen who has to live with the loss of her boyfriend, Sam. Personally, I’m incredibly vulnerable to books with themes of grief and losing a loved one unexpectedly. That’s why I avoided If I Stay and Me Before You like the devil was going to rip my soul away.

Dustin Thao’s simplistic writing style captured every emotion and essence of losing someone whose time was suddenly cut short. The yearning to be reunited, to have them physically beside and to talk to them was so vividly portrayed. While it featured the grief that everyone was experiencing, it highlighted moments the characters had fond memories of Sam, and how they moved on from such a tragic loss. You bet I was crying whenever they shared happy memories and during their acceptance of Sam’s death.

Missing him, Julie called Sam’s phone just to hear his voicemail but the unexpected happened. Sam picked up. It was a week after his death yet mysteriously they were connected by phone calls. Through those calls, they reminisced the joyful moments they had together and Sam fulfills some promises to Julie. Every single scene of the two of them made me sob helplessly. I couldn’t even begin expressing how devastating knowing that Sam was already gone and they were only linked by this feeble and fragile connection.

Julie’s pain was palpable. Her way of processing Sam’s death was beyond heartbreaking. It was messy and chaotic and drowning. Consumed by her grief and guilt, Julie wasn’t really a good friend. Basically, she started detaching herself from everyone and even missed Sam’s funeral. Comparing Julie’s before and after, the change is so great. If it were any other book, I would have been irritated by her actions and selfishness but I couldn’t even begin to feel annoyed at Julie when she had lost someone so close to her.

Why I decided to read You’ve Reached Sam is beyond any logical explanation except the heart wants what it wants. Nevertheless, I don’t regret my boyfriend’s startled question of “ARE YOU CRYING?!” while I was reading the last few chapters nor cared about my swollen, puffy eyes the next day. Take this as a warning since I started tearing up from page one. Reading the scenes where they planned for their future but to know that it’ll never be a reality just brought upon more tears. Also, I could never miss out on a book that’s pitched as Kimi no Na wa, one of my favorite Japanese animated films.

You’ve Reached Sam is about the grief, pain, and regret when one’s loved one has passed, the way the living mourns the dead, and the days in which their presence can no longer be felt. This second chance at goodbye absolutely broke me. An utterly gut-wrenching yet beautiful story of Julie and Sam. Dustin Thao handled grief poignantly and delicately while showing all the genuine messiness of it all.

You've Reached Sam is about a high schooler, Julie who's boyfriend is tragically killed. When she decides to give him a call, he picks up and now she can talk to him through their phone connection. When I got this ARC from Netgally, I wasn't completely aware of the storyline (I just thought the cover was super pretty and I was interested in reading more Asian American rep!) so I will admit I was completely blindsided during the first few chapters. I wish I could say it had gotten better from there.

After realizing what this story was about, I wanted to like it. I really did. The premise was super interesting and I loved the fact that there's this story for young adults about grief in losing both your boyfriend and your best friend at a very young age. Unfortunately, everything fell a bit flat for me.

Julie was a flat character in my opinion. She didn't really have much depth to her and her experiences were very selfish and I wanted to throttle her a few times just so she would wake up and see how many people love her and want to support her. Sam was a very sweet if very one sided character who we get to know more through flashbacks, but towards the end of their connection Sam didn't feel like he was the same person which I suppose could be based in the fact that he's now dead and changed.

I adored the side characters in this book. Mika and Oliver were amazing even when Julie wasn't being a good friend to them, they still made sure to try and include her. That being said, I shouldn't want to like a side character more than the main character who's POV we're seeing the world through.

Overall, this book had a great idea behind it, but it didn't power all the way through to the end. I felt like not much happened and the ending was a little rushed. Wouldn't read again, but was a good read nonetheless.

This one wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t for me. I’m not usually a huge fan of sad stories, but the beautiful cover and the rave reviews from some of my closest friends convinced me to try this one. I definitely think there is an audience of people who will absolutely LOVE this, it’s just not my personal taste.

I really wanted to love this book.

I just didn't. The first couple of chapters (especially the opening) were really good. But then I felt my myself getting disinterested towards the middle.
This story does an excellent job of portraying grief.....but the main character came off as so unlikable, it was hard to connect.

3/5 stars

This book was sad! The reader knows very clearly what they're getting into from the synopsis of this book, but I didn't realize how much of a trigger it would be for me. I enjoyed the walk through Julie's memories of Sam and how she grows over the course of the phone calls. Overall, I did like this book.

i was looking forward to reviewing this book but the file i was given i am unable to read in any format despite reaching out to netgalley several times. The site informed me they will attempt to reach out to the author and if i hear back and am able to read the book i will update my review then. I am going to give 3 stars however because i have friends who have read the book early and said it was spectacular and worth the wait.

Okay this book is just sad like emotionally sad if your going through a break up or a tough time I don’t recommend you reading this book. Julie had all these future plans about going away to college in the city with her boyfriend Sam and becoming a writer. Then Sam dies and Julies world is flipped upside down, until she calls Sam’s number just to hear his voice on the answer phone. But it isn’t an answer phone voice it’s actually Sam. This whole book you will go through all the emotions of heartbreak that the author captivates so well. Thankfully this book didn’t make me cry but I think it will definitely make a few of you cry.

You've Reached Sam is a powerful debut about love and loss. I've been more and more excited for this ever since it was announced, then the cover revealed, and now. Immediately You've Reached Sam comes for the feels. From its poignant title, we realize that we only hear the phrase, "you've reached" when we are speaking to an answering machine. Faced with a tone to pour our heart out in the hopes someone will listen, that they will rush to the phone, that they will return our call.

Julie's story phases from the pain and lashing out of grief to not being able to say goodbye. The ways grief and loss always seem to be mirrors to ourselves reflecting our own feelings of guilt and regret. How we think if we remove the mementos, the pain goes away, but it never does. Love and loss are stamped into our heart. And grief comes in waves. With this mysterious telephone connection, Julie is given a chance that anyone who has lost someone will attest is tantalizing - the chance to say goodbye. But for Julie, is this last lingering connection hurting more than helping?

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing me with an eARC for review.

Lila and Sam are high school students who have been dating for a few years. Lila's been out of town and Sam is supposed to pick her up from the bus station, but he forgot - they fight, she tells him she'll walk home, he races to go pick her up and is killed in a car accident on his way to her. People blame Lila for the accident and she's convinced the best way to get over Sam is to just forget him, so she gets rid of all of his stuff and doesn't go to the funeral, but then one day - about a week after his death, she calls his phone, and he picks up.

"We stayed up all night, talking about what we want to do ten years from now, waiting to see that burning red glow curve along a dark sky, oblivious to the significance of seeing another day. And oblivious to a future where one of us will be gone."

Thao's portrayal of grief was absolutely beautiful, and the connection Lila and Sam had was so sweet, so why didn't I like this book more!? I was so looking forward to it, thinking it would be the next If I Stay or The Fault in Our Stars, but it sort of fell flat. There were some very moving moments, but not a whole lot happened and it was a little repetitive. The good news is it's short, so if you're curious, you can read this in a day or two and decide for yourself. I think most people will enjoy You've Reached Sam, I just wasn't impressed.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

This book is beautiful from the cover to the last page. I really appreciate how the author discussed the topic of grief and how important it is to keep a relationship with family and friends. The writing style was beautiful and so easy to follow and get immersed into it, and even tho is a book about a sad and heavy topic, I felt happy reading it and seeing how much these characters grew. Is the perfect hard-hitting contemporary that could take you out of a reading slump. Can't wait to read another book by this author.

This was a compelling story, full of emotion and even a few tears for me. I was super intrigued by the concept and the first half of the story kept me really engaged. I absolutely love the way this story deals with grief and I think it will be important to a lot of people. The second half of the novel was less engaging, in part because of Julie. Her arc started to confuse me a bit by the end; her emotions started confusing me which made me less engaged in the climax. Still, overall it was a beautiful story that I'd highly recommend to teens dealing with loss.

3/5
Thank you so much to NetGalley & St. Martins Press for this e-arc.

I don't even quite know how to put how I feel into words. The first couple chapters in the book had me very emotional but then I very quickly found myself unable to connect to Julie and her grieving process. Grief is very selfish a lot of the time so I can understand why she was usually only looking out for her own pain but it didn't make it any easier to read through. I wanted to connect with her and grieve with her. It just didn't happen. I think the writing stylistically is very well done. I found myself liking the side characters like Mika more than our leading lady. The ending was so abrupt and I didn't feel the amount of closure that would make sense for it being the sole purpose of them reconnecting with each other. It was still a good read and I'm glad to have been able to read it.

You’ve reached Sam made was an emotional rollercoaster for me 😭 it made me feel all the feels and I would definitely recommend it for anyone who wants a heartfelt touching story about grief and learning acceptance after the passing of someone you care about this author depicted amazingly how too often we try to hold on and how deep the denial can go after a loss ! Overall amazing read 😭