Some people in mourning would give anything for one last chance to talk to their loved one. That’s exactly the opportunity that Julie is given in Dustin Thao’s You’ve Reached Sam. Julie is in the middle of her senior year, planning to move away for college with her long-time high school boyfriend Sam, when he gets in a car accident.

Julie’s life pauses when Sam dies. Even after getting rid of Sam’s things, deleting his voicemails, and trying to move on, Julie realizes she can’t. Without thinking, she calls him, and her world turns upside down once more when Sam picks up. It’s something neither of them can explain, and while both of them know that Sam is truly gone, Julie can’t stop clinging onto this fragment of him like they’d still be able to be together forever. 

As she opens back up and reconnects, she also realizes that she wasn’t the only one grieving. Nobody can discount her grief and her own experience with it, but through it, she pushed everybody away, refusing to attend his funeral or talk to his family—especially his cousin Mika, who grew up with him all his life and was one of his best friends. 

Characterization as a whole is a common point of contention for some, from Julie seeming annoying and selfish or Sam seeming one-dimensional. It’s difficult to give Sam life, but even in the flashbacks, Sam doesn’t feel real, doesn’t seem as flawed. For Julie, the biggest struggle she has is understanding others’ grief. In some cases, she seems to almost dismiss others’ experiences (Mika’s especially) compared to her own. 

Having Sam back—sort of—may be beyond anything she could’ve wished for, but it makes moving on even harder. For Julie, life has resumed and once again, she can’t imagine a world without Sam in it. As they continue talking, Julie only gets more determined to keep him in her life as Sam becomes more aware how important it is for Julie to move on, and this unspoken tension continues to ramp up throughout the story. 

You’ve Reached Sam is an undeniably emotional book and despite Sam being dead the entire book and knowing Sam and Julie have to say goodbye again, the story has a hopeful tone and keeps readers captivated with its vivid writing and question of “what if”.