You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao
Synopsis:
“A heartfelt novel about love and loss and what it means to say goodbye”
“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?”
Perfect for: Readers who love to cry and feel pain; readers who love emotional stories about love; readers looking for a story that depicts grief.
I’m a lover of eye catching books before I read a book, of course there’s the saying “never judged a book by its cover.” But sometimes I can’t help it. I constantly kept on seeing this book on my ‘for you’ page and finally I caved in and bought it. Not only is the cover of this book so beautiful, the story of it made me fall in love with this book even more.
(This book has broken me in the most beautiful way and the last voicemail still haunts me)
You’ve Reached Sam is a story that confronts grief in its most intense and most painful, its tender and genuine portrayal of love in its most pure form was also unexpectedly healing. One of my greatest and most intense fears is losing someone, I love. And then you have You’ve Reached Sam, which is that fear in book form. I think a beautiful part of this book is that there really isn’t an explanation as to how Julie and Sam are connected; it’s not about the how, but about the why. The impossible connection blurs fantasy and reality, underpinning their close and intense bond and therefore offers a great device that explores the complexities of grief and letting go.
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