You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao

An Instant New York Times Bestseller! If I Stay meets Your Name in Dustin Thao's You've Reached Sam, a heartfelt novel about love and loss and what it means to say goodbye. Seventeen-year-old Julie Clarke has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city; spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies. And everything changes. Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his belongings, and tries everything to forget him. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces memories to return. Desperate to hear him one more time, Julie calls Sam's cell phone just to listen to his voice mail recording. And Sam picks up the phone. The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam's voice makes Julie fall for him all over again and with each call, it becomes harder to let him go. What would you do if you had a second chance at goodbye? A 2021 Kids' Indie Next List Selection A Cosmo.com Best YA Book Of 2021 A Buzzfeed Best Book Of November A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book

Plot: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Pacing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So emotional.

This book deals with grief in such a realistic way.
I lost my father when I was a child. I never got to say goodbye and that eats at me everyday. I still need that closure. I need to speak to him again just like Julie did with Sam in this book. If I could ring my father now just to say the word “goodbye” I would.

I wasn't prepared for this book. It sent me spiralling. It shows how short life is and how at any moment you could just die. What happens when we die? No one knows and that's just so scary to me.
If I were to die young, I would just be a memory to those who loved me. If I were to die right now, I would forever be 22 years old in my loved ones memories for decades. I would be a passing thought in 20 years, I would be somewhat forgotten.

Do we move on and try and stop the grief when someone we loved dies? Or do we carry them with us for the rest of our lives and forever be somewhat sad? Death is natural, just as natural as eating, sleeping, breathing but why is it the hardest thing to deal with?

I lost my father and I'm currently losing my mother to illness and this book just reminded me that I have another chance to say goodbye and spend more time with loved ones. Life happens and its crazy and unpredictable and we could all become Julie one day.

Something to take away from this book is to live everyday without regrets. This is harsh but you could die any minute. LIVE YOUR LIFE.

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In a less serious topic here, the two main characters share the same name with my pets hahaha
Julie is the name of one of my cats and I have a dog named sam

3.5/5 stars

This is a rating I'm gonna have to sleep on and whether I'm gonna round it up or down. But anyways, I'm sad.

I was immediately drawn to this book after reading the synopsis and seeing the gorgeous cover, and I had high expectations for this one, but the story didn't quite engross me as I was expecting.

I understand that people have different ways of grieving, but some of her actions just came across as insensitive and selfish? She claims to be close with Sam's family, but she completely stops talking to Sam's mom and brother, who she claims to be very close with, and only talks to his cousin because Mika makes the effort.

The writing was easy to get into, and I did enjoy the flashbacks of how they met and their relationship developing, but I just didn't feel like the characters were fleshed out well. I couldn't empathize with Julie, and I couldn't see Sam beyond a memory. Although we were getting flashbacks, it just seemed like we were seeing a memory, and not Sam actually still alive. (I don't even know if that makes sense to you but I don't know how to explain this any better right now bc I'm running on 3hrs of sleep