Name: You’ve Reached Sam
Series: You’ve Reached Sam #1
Author: Dustin Thao
Publisher: First Ink
Format: Audiobook & Hardback Tandem
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary Romance, Magical Realism, Fiction
Spice Rating: None
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
Seventeen-year-old Julie 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.
Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s phone just to listen to his voicemail. And Sam picks up the phone…
What would you do if you had a second chance at goodbye?
Review:
Ohhhh, I was not ready. I should have been ready because When Haru Was Here’s ending had me in tears… but I wasn’t prepared for You’ve Reached Sam to hit me as hard as it did as early as it did! And not only did it have me sobbing in the early chapters, but then it got me multiple times later in the book too. I definitely agree that you need to have some tissues ready to go if you’re going to pick this one up!
I did a tandem read using the audiobook and the physical book and I think the audiobook enhanced this for me. There were moments when the pain from the voice of the narrator got me in a way that the words alone wouldn’t have got me as well as they did… Dustin has this ability, proven so far by both books emotionally hurting me, to make me sob ugly tears. And it’s making me question whether or not I’m the problem since I keep willingly subjecting myself to this by reading his books!
Julie isn’t the most likeable FMC, I can admit to that – but on the flipside, I absolutely understand why she was the way she was… I think it’s hard to judge a character who is going through such grief. That being said, I can agree that some of the fights she ends up having started to feel repetitive because surely at some point she was going to realise that the way in which she was hurting one person was probably hurting another in the same way…? No. Okay… That was my only gripe with You’ve Reached Sam.
I absolutely recommend Dustin Thao’s work, but you do definitely need to be prepared for it to be emotional. These contemporary romance’s aren’t normally my cup of tea but the elements of magical realism, and actually the genuine pain that comes through definitely help me get into a genre that normally isn’t for me. I know this will not suddenly mean I’m going to love contemporary romances, but dipping my toes is a good start for me.
“Letting go isn’t about forgetting. It’s balancing moving forward with life, and looking back from time to time, remembering the people in it.”
Reading With Tyler 
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