You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao is a realistic fiction with a bittersweet story. The story starts with 17-year-old Julie Clarke who’s recently been through a tragedy, her boyfriend Sam died in an accident. All she wants is to go back in time so that everything will be okay again. She decides that to move on she needs to forget him entirely and that’s the only way she can be okay. One day, when she’s at her lowest she calls his phone not expecting him to pick up, but he does. Sam picks up to help Julie move on from his death and realize it’s not her fault, to keep living her life, but as the weeks go on and she relies more on their calls Sam realizes that she’s not accepting his death. Slowly as Julie and Sam talk more and as Julie focuses on her future, she starts to move on from Sam with the help of her friends and Sam. At the end of the book Julie and Sam part ways and Julie moves on with her life too but she never forgets him.
I think the book could have been better, the story made Julie seem rude and impulsive. Her first thought when she was trying to move on was to throw away all of Sam’s things only to regret it later on. Also when her friends were trying to help her cope, she pushed them away and didn’t think to ask them how they were coping. Other than that, it was entertaining and sad as we got to see the past memories of Sam and Julie but we were pulled back to the present without Sam. We saw how much Julie was struggling with letting him go and when Sam started to realize it too he was having a hard time as well. I would recommend this book for pre-teens as it was bittersweet but maybe not for older audiences as some things such as Julie's decisions can be a little aggravating. It was entertaining and the ending was sad enough to make it a good read for people who enjoy sad books.