I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao Published by Wednesday Books on 11/9/21
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 298
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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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?
Short and Sweet Review
Julie has her future planned out, and those plans involve her boyfriend Sam. But Sam dies in a car accident and everything changes. Julie tries to forget about Sam by throwing out his belongings and even skipping his funeral, but after seeing a message he left for her in her yearbook she calls his phone expecting his voicemail but Sam answers.
The premise of this book was good but unfortunately it just fell flat and Julie wasn’t a character that I really liked. Sam answers the phone and the conversations he has with Julie are meant to give her closure and get to say the goodbye she wasn’t able to when he died suddenly. But Julie seems to think she can hold on to Sam even when he’s ready to let go and basically be at peace. Anyway everyone grieves differently and I understand that but I just didn’t like how at ease Julie was at with blowing her friends off and just canceling plans with them. Julie had a great group of friends that just wanted to surround her and be supportive of her during this time. The ending was okay I just can’t get over how I didn’t like Julie’s character. I feel like she’s one of those people that constantly needs to be reassured and Sam was a good enough boyfriend and provided that to her, but other than that I don’t know why they were together because Julie was just selfish and a little self serving.
This book wasn’t what I was hoping for and it ended up being a disappointment.
