You’ve Reached Sam, Dustin Thao

How do you move on when someone you love dies? In Julie’s case, not at all. She wants to erase his presence in her life completely. Hurt can do that to you. But her love for Sam spans past the earthly coil, enabling her to communicate with him after he dies. As good as that sounds, it might just be stopping Julie from processing the grief that is swallowing her whole. She’s breaking promises to friends and letting them down. She’s living life for Sam, and it’s downright unhealthy.

As far as characters, Mika is someone special. It can be so hard to reach out to others in the face of your grief, and she’s hurting too. But she wants to help Julie deal with her pain. While I couldn’t connect with the characters overall, I don’t think that’s necessary to enjoy the book. I appreciated Thao’s approach to Julie’s grief. There were quite a few touching moments reading You’ve Reached Sam, making it really special. Thank you, St. Martin’s, for sending this along.

You’ve Reached Sam is available for preorder on Amazon, Bookshop, and B&N, it releases November 9th.

About the Book:

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.

Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries everything to forget him and the tragic way he died. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces back memories. Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail.

And Sam picks up the phone.

In a miraculous turn of events, Julie’s been given a second chance at goodbye. The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam’s voice makes her fall for him all over again, and with each call, it becomes harder to let him go. However, keeping her otherworldly calls with Sam a secret isn’t easy, especially when Julie witnesses the suffering Sam’s family is going through. Unable to stand by the sidelines and watch their shared loved ones in pain, Julie is torn between spilling the truth about her calls with Sam and risking their connection and losing him forever.