Book Review: You've Reached Sam By Dustin Thao

 

Book: You’ve Reached Sam 

Author: Dustin Thao

Genre: Romantic

About Author

Dustin Thao is a Vietnamese American writer based in New York City. He graduated from Amherst College with a B.A. in Political Science and is currently in a PhD program at Northwestern University where he studies critical media literacy. He writes contemporary fiction, and his debut novel You’ve Reached Sam is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller.

About The Book

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 voicemail 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?

Book Review

The phone calls between Julie and Sam allow us to see parts of their relationship that often get lost during grief like just the normal types of conversations or the way they kind of pick at each other, the way couples sometimes do when they’ve been together a long time.

The loss of Sam impacts Julie’s whole community, and she doesn’t realize it until she begins talking to him. Again, she’s withdrawn not only from his family but from her other friends and even her own family. At first, the calls seem to help her regain her feet and process her emotions. Eventually, they morph into something else, though. And it becomes more and more clear that the calls can’t continue forever or be an alternative to saying goodbye.

I loved the way music was present in the story. One of the songs that are special to Julie and Sam is a song called “Fields of Gold,” which I had to go listen to as soon as I finished reading the book. I’d heard it before, and listening to it again, I felt it fit the story perfectly. It makes their love story even better.

There are a couple of places where I thought the story got a little bit choppy or seemed like it was summarizing things in a hurry to get to the next big moment. Other than that, though, I felt like it was a beautiful story about loss that’s rich with emotions and celebrates the connections we make with the people in our lives. I highly recommend you this book if you love and want to cry. I will rate it 4/5.