By Samantha Diaz
If you could have one last chance to speak to your dead loved one, would you do it? In his debut YA speculative novel, You’ve Reached Sam, Dustin Thao painstakingly writes about the heartbreak of suddenly losing the love of your life.
Thao transports readers inside the grief of seventeen-year-old Julie as she mourns the loss of her boyfriend Sam. In her heart, Julie believes she was responsible for Sam’s death since he was rushing to meet her at the train station after he forgot to pick her up. In anger, she ignores his calls and walks home, not realizing that Sam never made it to the train station, having passed in a car crash. As the weight of the world becomes too heavy for Julie to bear, she calls Sam’s phone, only to be surprised when her dead boyfriend answers.
Julie believes she was given a second chance with Sam, and she holds on tightly to that gift. It is as if they were never separated to begin with: Sam surprises Julie with adventures like visiting the cherry blossoms together and hiking up to an open field as they talk for hours. However, these phone calls with Sam hurt Julie’s chances of accepting her new reality. Sam promises her that she can call him anytime until she is ready to say good-bye, but Julie intends to stay connected with Sam forever. The more Julie thinks about Sam and talks to him through the phone, the more she fades from living her life.
Julie distances herself from friends, family, and most importantly, from Sam’s cousin Mika, who needs her the most. For the past three years, it was always Mika, Sam, and Julie, the trio; and Mika takes the loss of the group hard on top of the death of her cousin. Instead of working through her grief with Mika or anyone else in her life, Julie hides in her own world and forgets about her loved ones that are still alive.
I try not to daydream anymore. It only tricks me with images of Sam, filling me with the possibility that we can still be together, that there’s a future for us, until reality comes in like a storm to blow everything away.
You’ve Reached Sam broke my heart with each turn of the page. Although I followed the release of Thao’s debut in 2021, I just was not ready for a heartbreaking story, until now. Throughout the novel I teared up, whimpered, and sobbed at the relationship Sam and Julie have, and had. They were the epitome of young love; and to live with the sudden death of a loved one is difficult for a person of any age.
Right from the start, we get an idea of how loving and connected the relationship is through a series of Julie’s dreams. In fact, the novel switches back and forth from Julie’s dreams of the past, both distorted and real, and the present. Within the first few pages, I was thrown for a loop, but that is exactly what a dream is supposed to feel like. These dream sequences transported me into Julie’s headspace.
Sam looks at me. “Julie…if I could stay with you, I’d never leave.”
“But you did leave.”
“I know…I’m sorry.”
“You never said goodbye…”
“That’s because I never thought I had to…”
If there is one thing to take from this story, it is to end your conversations with kindness. Before Sam passes, Julie’s last conversation with him is out of anger; because of that, she is reminded every day after his death how she treated her boyfriend poorly and is filled with regret. Julie constantly goes over the what if’s and how if she wasn’t so mad at him, maybe Sam would still be alive.
This novel wonderfully illustrates grief and acceptance and how different they are for each character. Julie’s mental state sets the tone of the story, yet we see through her clouded vision the emotions of every other person close to Sam. Through Julie’s POV, we see that Mika’s personality changes, and Oliver, Sam’s best friend, copes by befriending Julie and sharing memories of Sam. Everyone’s life changed after Sam lost his.
Time is a common theme throughout the story. The author drops subtle, yet sometimes on-the-nose motifs on the concept of time: Julie’s mom is “coincidentally” a professor who teaches time concepts to university students, Thao interweaves motifs of clocks and ends throughout the text, Sam describes his death as “running out of time,” and Julie rushes in her dreams to save Sam but is “running out of time.” This leads up to the biggest take on time – the phone calls.
Their conversations start to static, lasting a few minutes at a time. By not saying goodbye, the magic of the phone calls dwindles. The phone calls become more spaced out and scheduled in hopes of preserving the blessing they were given, but Sam warns Julie that their connection will soon come to an end. He doesn’t know when or why, only that their conversations cannot last forever. The novel itself is a ticking clock that is racing to an end.
If you need a good cry or are in search of true love stories, You’ve Reached Sam is the book for you. Thao accomplishes the written feeling of grief, love, and acceptance. It is a reminder to us to not take our relationships for granted. Every moment is a valuable memory to hold dear in our hearts.
You’ve Reached Sam is available from Bookshop, Loyalty Bookstore, Massy Books, Strand Book Store, The Ripped Bodice, Vroman’s Bookstore, and 27th Letter Books.
Samantha Desirae Diaz is a writer who explores true crime, paranormal, and romance stories. Born and raised in Chino, CA, she earned her B.A. in screenwriting from California State University, Northridge, and her M.F.A. in creative writing from Chapman University.