You've Reached Sam

Product Information

You’ve Reached Sam is basically about the question “what if you get a chance to talk to someone who has already passed?”. Life will pass right by you,” she says, her eyes focused on the road. “And you end up missing the little things, the moments you don’t think matter—but they do. Moments that make you forget about everything else. Just like with your writing,” she adds out of nowhere. “You don’t write to get to the end. You write because you enjoy doing it. You write and don’t want it to end. Does that make some sense?” 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. Still, there were some things that didn’t work for me, one of them the simple fact that the storyline began one week after Sam’s death. For me this was way too early and yes, you can criticize me for this statement all you want, but I think it made the entire story less believable. A lot of the characters were already at a point you only reach after a couple of weeks or months have passed, so for me this resulted in the fact that the timing was totally off. There are seven stages of grief and Julie was already at 3 and 4 when the book began. Mind you, we’re talking one week after Sam’s death. Some people might take that at face value and it’s okay if they do, but as a person who basically went through the same thing Julie did, this felt wrong to me. A week after almost everyone is still at stage 1 and to be honest some remain at that stage for a couple of weeks or even longer. (I’m no psychiatrist, I only speak from personal experience here.) I guess I better prepare some tissues and hope I’ll be able to make it through this. *crosses fingers*

Since that day, Julie’s life has pretty much stopped, too. The heartbreak and grief consume her. She hasn’t been able to move, much less talk to others. She couldn’t even attend Sam’s funeral. She’s a hollow shell of a 17-year-old girl. Sitting on her bed day after day. Staring at the wall. A heartfelt YA read. At times maybe leaning toward the younger YA age range, which is entirely fine - but I do think it missed out on some depth because of this.

Customer reviews

That’s not a way to live life,” my mother says, her hands gripping the wheel. “Always worrying about what comes next, instead of living in the moment. I see this in a lot of my students. And I’m seeing it in you…” She looks at me. “You’re living ahead of yourself, Julie. Making decisions, and wanting things done, only to set up the future.” Disclaimer: Any and all opinions said up there are my own, and please feel free to call me out for any errors or any offensive comments, so I can get right on it and get it fixed! 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! This book make your heart sting and hurt and will give you scars. It’s beautiful, I kept it together until the end, until epilogue and then I was a real mess. The romance felt a little bit cliché, but it was pretty nice. Julie and Sam were a nice couple. I can’t say I shipped them, but the romance was the core of the plot and it did work, so it was good. The execution was done well (again, kinda the same thing as any other romance, but still).

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. If only he’d listened to me and stayed with his friends. If only he didn’t forget about me in the first place. If only he just this once let me be upset instead of always trying to fix things, no one would be blaming me for what happened. I wouldn’t be blaming me.

Did we miss something on diversity?

I’m in the minority here (as usual😩) so y’all will probably end up liking this more than I did! Give it a chance if you like YA and if the premise sounds interesting to you! Anyway, here’s a short review to encapsulate my rage:

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. Kill me, why won't you? I don't have a basement, but I have a bookshelf. Donate the pieces of my body to be made into books. i think that's what thao was trying to do here: make us feel. and that passage got me primed for my cry sesh at the end of the book, which brings me to... I readjust the box that’s starting to feel heavy. “Mom—we’ve never owned a lawn gnome,” I say. Thankfully. “And we also don’t collect vintage sports cars.”Hey. Just to make sure I beat everyone to it, I wanted to write in this first. I hope that’s some more proof of how much I’m in love with you. I still can’t believe it. How did three years go by so fast? It feels like yesterday I was sitting on the bus behind you trying to build the courage to say something. It’s crazy to think there was a time before we knew each other. A time before “Sam and Julie.” Or “Julie and Sam”? I’ll let you decide that one. I know you can’t wait to leave this place, but I’m gonna miss it. I get it, though. Your ideas were always too big for a small town, and everyone here knows it. But I’m happy your path somehow made you stop in Ellensburg along the way. So you and I could meet each other. Maybe it was supposed to happen, you know? I feel like my life didn’t start until I met you, Julie. You’re the best thing to happen to this small town. To me. I realize it doesn’t matter where we’re going next, as long as we’re together. I’ll be honest. I used to be scared of leaving home. Now I can’t wait to move on and make new memories with you. Just don’t forget the ones we made here. Especially when you make it big. And whatever happens, promise you won’t forget me, okay? Anyway, I love you, Julie, and always will. Yours forever, Sam” we have a lot of asian rep! sam and his family are japanese-american, and many of julie's friends are asian, too. i especially enjoyed seeing multiple cultural perspectives on death and grief. sam's cousin, mika, talks about tradition and the need to honor those who have passed. it honestly would have been great if the book had delved deeper into this!! I loved how diverse this book was, how it dealt with emotions, not only read, I felt them. Every word was piercing my heart. The characters, the diversity, the wide range of topics it covered while dealing with the main focus of handling loss and grief. It’s outstanding. It’ll teach you multiple lessons, loads and loads! Never forgetting, Julie and Sam were gold!