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A review by ravensandpages
You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao
3.0
I received an ARC forever ago in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley and Wednesday Books!
YOU'VE REACHED SAM is a bittersweet contemporary YA that follows Julie, whose carefully planned future violently derails when her boyfriend dies in a car crash on the way to her. Her grief turns her avoidant, trying her best to forget Sam until she dials his number—and he picks up.
I'm not normally a contemporary enjoyer (especially not one set during high school), but I do like a contemporary with magical elements, and I like how the connection and phone call elements scaffolded the themes of grief and dealing with loss. I actually really liked the theme and main message a lot and it really spoke to me as someone who has dealt with this sort of grief before. Julie's arc is easily my favorite part of the book.
I think I lacked an emotional connection to it that lay in how unfleshed out many of the characters were. I felt like Julie's mom wholesale disappeared for a lot of the book (unless there was some reasoning for it my ears skipped over, which is entirely possible? She sounded so cool and then was barely relevant), and as much as I did like the other classmates' grief turning them angry and vindictive toward Julie, it ultimately felt like just a way for her to be bullied instead of showing more complex realities of grief. The beginning hooked me but as things went on, it felt just a bit too long and drawn out.
I am also not one to need an explanation for magic or strange occurrences in stories, but there were a lot of hints made that cause me to think a bigger reveal was coming that never landed. I think the epilogue was very touching, and I liked how Julie learned to balance letting go and still remembering Sam and honoring his memory. I liked the end of the end chapter, but it started out sounding like an epilogue so much that I was caught off guard. This is just getting nitpicky though, so I think overall, there was just some element that caused the rest to fail to make a true impact on me.
HOWEVER! As mentioned before, I am not a huge lover of YA contemporary and it needs to be astounding to break through that for me, so I would still recommend giving this a chance if you think you'll like it. I'm interested to see where Thao goes with his writing and I may pick up When Haru Was Here was well.
YOU'VE REACHED SAM is a bittersweet contemporary YA that follows Julie, whose carefully planned future violently derails when her boyfriend dies in a car crash on the way to her. Her grief turns her avoidant, trying her best to forget Sam until she dials his number—and he picks up.
I'm not normally a contemporary enjoyer (especially not one set during high school), but I do like a contemporary with magical elements, and I like how the connection and phone call elements scaffolded the themes of grief and dealing with loss. I actually really liked the theme and main message a lot and it really spoke to me as someone who has dealt with this sort of grief before. Julie's arc is easily my favorite part of the book.
I think I lacked an emotional connection to it that lay in how unfleshed out many of the characters were. I felt like Julie's mom wholesale disappeared for a lot of the book (unless there was some reasoning for it my ears skipped over, which is entirely possible? She sounded so cool and then was barely relevant), and as much as I did like the other classmates' grief turning them angry and vindictive toward Julie, it ultimately felt like just a way for her to be bullied instead of showing more complex realities of grief. The beginning hooked me but as things went on, it felt just a bit too long and drawn out.
I am also not one to need an explanation for magic or strange occurrences in stories, but there were a lot of hints made that cause me to think a bigger reveal was coming that never landed. I think the epilogue was very touching, and I liked how Julie learned to balance letting go and still remembering Sam and honoring his memory. I liked the end of the end chapter, but it started out sounding like an epilogue so much that I was caught off guard. This is just getting nitpicky though, so I think overall, there was just some element that caused the rest to fail to make a true impact on me.
HOWEVER! As mentioned before, I am not a huge lover of YA contemporary and it needs to be astounding to break through that for me, so I would still recommend giving this a chance if you think you'll like it. I'm interested to see where Thao goes with his writing and I may pick up When Haru Was Here was well.