Genre: Young Adult
Content warnings: grief, motor vehicle accidents, death
Perfect for when you’re in the mood for: if and when you randomly feel like crying on any given afternoon of the week.
To begin this review, let’s start off with some lore. When I first purchased You’ve Reached Sam, I picked it up for a few reasons.
When I brought the book to the cashier, they let me know that You’ve Reached Sam had actually been out of stock for a while, mostly because it was very popular on TikTok. I’m not on TikTok and have grown wary about whatever is popular there. All of this to say that I’d done my best to avoid anything You’ve Reached Sam related on the internet, mostly by forcing myself to forget the unsolicited spoilers the algorithm showed me on Instagram Reels.
How do you move forward when everything you love is on the line?
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 cell phone just to listen to his voicemail. And Sam picks up the phone.
I wanted to go in blind and keep my expectations to a minimum. However, I’d be lying if I said the internet hadn’t influenced my opinion of this book. The cover was pretty, and the concept in the blurb was interesting enough that I was looking forward to finally reading it.
As I said, the YA genre is flourishing. Nowadays, Asian representation has more visibility online and in bookstores. When I was in high school, during the early- to mid-2010s, I couldn’t just walk into Dymocks and find a book written by an Asian author with Asian characters. I had to go digging. Even if I scoured every shelf, I’d find maybe one, or two books if I was lucky. Perhaps I’m just trying to heal my inner child, but it makes me excited. Truthfully, it makes me want to buy every single one because I'm being represented for the first time. It’s me in those stories, so of course, I want to read them.
However, I’ve been struggling to read anything Young Adult for a while now. I’m not entirely sure if it’s because I’m growing out of the YA genre, or because I wasn’t a fan of the writing style. In You’ve Reached Sam, it felt like a blend of both.
There’s no way around this aside from the fact that I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to. Maybe, in my early 20s, stories about 15- to 17-year-olds just don’t cut it for me. I don’t find them relatable anymore because those years of my life have passed, and I’m dealing with different issues. Despite that deep-rooted desire to sate my inner child with Asian characters in fiction, I’ve simply moved on from Young Adult. I want different genres that reflect who I am now, not who I was.
It’s hard to distinguish whether this was a case of genre or writing style. Of course, each genre comes with its styles and conventions, somewhat of a blueprint for the author to follow.
However, I found it difficult to connect with Dustin Thao’s writing. Perhaps it was the way Dustin Thao wrote You’ve Reached Sam, instead of my growing dislike for the genre. I get the feeling it might’ve been targeting a younger audience than 20-something. This doesn’t make it a bad book, nor does it make me dislike the book any more or less than when I first read it. I think it’s simply a case of me not being the kind of reader he had in mind for the story.
The pacing felt rushed, and I felt as though all the moments that weren’t Julie and Sam felt largely underdeveloped.
This section contains mild spoilers for You’ve Reached Sam.
Mika (Sam’s cousin) is understandably upset when Julie skips out on Sam’s viewing, funeral and vigils. To Mika, Julie is being incredibly selfish. Their own grief aside, Mika needs her friend’s support, and Julie is off doing her own thing. There’s some explanation of what happened between her and Mika, but it felt lacking. Julie is far too focused on maintaining this mysterious reconnection with Sam that her friendship with Mika nearly falls through. After Mika stands up for Julie in a fight at school, and Julie still bails on Mika, it makes sense that her apologies aren’t exactly enough to mend the loss between them. Only after all this, does Julie reveal to Mika that she and Sam are still connected – even then, it felt like such a quick and easy fix to a friendship that looked so close to falling apart.
Moreover, I wish there was a little more emphasis on Julie’s interpersonal relationships, not just the one with Sam. Understandably, Sam and Julie’s past and present relationship is the most important; however, her relationship with other characters, such as Julie’s parents, Sam’s parents, and Sam’s younger brother, James, all felt largely neglected to me. In some YA, I know parent-child relationships aren’t exactly the focus of the story, but in the case of death, I think those relationships should’ve had more development.
Throughout the book, we barely get any insight into James and Julie’s relationship. Julie makes little to no effort to check up on Sam’s family. Sam does tell Julie to look after Mika, and he does talk about his best friend, Oliver. However, neither Sam nor Julie mention taking care of his parents or brother. When James goes missing, it’s the same excuse Julie’s had the entire book.
Julie’s always too busy trying to maintain this connection with Sam, she’d forgotten about everything else. It means she misses out on school, she bails on plans she’s committed to, and she forgets to check-in with Mika, her mum, her dad, Sam’s parents, Sam’s younger brother. Through her pursuit of Sam, Julie prioritises calling him above all else and loses sight of anything that isn’t him.
I’d argue her relationship with Sam’s family after his death should’ve been explored a bit more. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose your son and his girlfriend is nowhere to be seen during all the important ceremonies in his honour.
Towards the end of the book, Julie breaks her phone at graduation. She’s devastated because now there’s no other way to reach Sam. However, she remembers what Sam told her. Only their phones are connected, so Julie rushes to Sam’s house to find his old cell phone. Conveniently, Sam’s parents are out of town (though there is zero foreshadowing or explanation as to why), and she’s easily able to break into his house, find his phone, and call him for a final time.
You’re one of the best things to ever happen to me. And when I think about my life, I think of you in it. You are my entire world, Julie. And one day, maybe I’ll only be a small piece of yours. I hope you keep that piece.
All in all, while the writing style wasn’t exactly my favourite, it was still an enjoyable read. Plus, I was sobbing violently by the end of this book, so I have to give Dustin Thao (and Instagram Reels) credit for that.
At times, I had to remind myself that not only is Julie 17, but the readership for this book is a lot younger than I am. I think it would be unfair of me to be so harsh on Julie for all the decisions she’d made in regard to Sam’s death. In the end, she’s 17, still trying to navigate her place in the world. Understandably, she hadn’t been the greatest friend or family member, but that’s what grief can do to you.
Even though there was no realistic way to bring him back, Julie was fighting for every moment to get a second chance with Sam. It came at the cost of ignoring her friends and family and nearly missing out on some life opportunities, but I can empathise with her desire to hold on. Sometimes it feels easier to do that than let go because now her future feels unknown. And that’s terrifying.
You’ve Reached Sam teaches us a valuable lesson about second chances. Julie cannot move on from Sam and cannot move forward with her life should she continue her connection with him. As she continues wrestling with the reality that she must let go, the rest of the world is moving on without her. The plans Julie once had with Sam have permanently changed. She can’t keep herself rooted in two places. The only way to move on is to move forward and let go.
And Julie does exactly that.
Rating: 3 stars.
