Dustin Thao demonstrates the powerful balance of learning to move forward while dealing with immense grief in You’ve Reached Sam, a story focused on a high school senior, Julie, who is in the midst of grieving her boyfriend and first love Sam, who died a week prior to the beginning of the story. 

Julie, in a desperate attempt to hear Sam’s voice after a hard day, calls his cell phone, but in place of his voicemail is him, speaking to her from some sort of afterlife. The two of them do not understand why this is happening, but they do know that their time together in this space is limited.

This work deals with the complexity of teenage emotion in a way that not many books do, because the loss of a significant other in this way is not common; however, there is a delicate element to this book, because readers are taken through flashbacks in which they are given in inside glimpse to the nature of Julie and Sam’s relationship before the tragedy. These flashbacks revealed that Julie was constantly putting Sam in situations that made her unlikable to the reader, and I picked up on that rather quickly. In these flashbacks, it is revealed that Sam was killed when he was driving to Julie after a party; at the same time, readers learn that Sam’s best friends have taken to blaming Julie for his death with no regard to how she feels about the situation. This was my least favorite part of the book, as I didn’t feel like it was necessary to further the plot, given that she is only indirectly to blame for his death, since she is not the one that caused the fatal car crash to happen.

I thought the work overall was solid, but I do feel like it was missing the element of Julie, leaning on other people to grieve, and I feel like this was taken away from the reader as a result of Sam’s best friends blaming her. I would’ve liked to see more people reaching out to see how she felt about the entire situation instead of those closest to the couple sort of turning their backs on her, but I understand that it was needed to further the plot of Julie not being able to tell anyone about the communication she was having with Sam. I also think Julie not having anybody to lean on in this situation made it more difficult for me to like her, because she chose to shut everyone out, instead of seeking out help that she’s so desperately needed; however, I will admit that it is very hard for me to give grace to a protagonist that is as unlikable as Julie, as I feel like I was searching, for some kind of redemption arc that she never truly got.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book, but I have heard stories of people really liking it, so it might’ve just not been my cup of tea. It is very popular on TikTok, and I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s overhyped, but I do feel like it gets more recognition than it deserves.