Miranda's Reading Blog 2.0 :(

Young and in love, two high school seniors, Sam and Julie, are just that. After happily dating since freshman year, a tragedy takes Sam out of the picture and leaves Julie alone to grieve the loss of her true love and high school sweetheart. Their love was so strong she could still feel a connection, even after he was gone. Love-sick and grieving, Julie decides to call him to hear his voice one last time. When she does so the unexpected happened, she didn't get voicemail. Sam actually picked up the phone. You've Reached Sam written by Dustin Thao explores the connection between Sam and Julie, the connection that somehow stayed alive even after Sam died. How long will this connection last? Will Julie ever be able to move on? When will their time be up? With an invisible hour glass slowly emptying out, Julie doesn't know it, but someday their connection will fade. The question is, how long until that happens. I rated this book a 3.5/5 stars because I really liked the idea of it, but at times it seemed too repetitive.

You've Reached Sam is a cutesy little young adult romance book with an interesting plot. The book begins with a little prologue that explains Sam and Julie's relationship and how they met. Then, the book transitioned by introducing the conflict in the time as it was happening, so the 'before'. This part showed that Sam died, but it didn't tell us how, or Julie's involvement in it. The book then continued on to the rising action which is when Julie found out she could talk with Sam on the phone. This connection they had turned into what Julie revolved her life around. The connection was so strong between them that Julie was no longer connected with her other, living, loved ones. Everyone thought that she didn't care about Sam dying because she skipped every funeral and memorial for him, but really she was so engulfed in their connection through the phone that nothing else mattered to her. When she realizes this a large wave of guilt overcomes her. At this point of the book, Julie was starting to realize that their connection wasn't as strong and that she would have to say goodbye at some point, which was probably soon. This is the main conflict in the book. Having to say goodbye would be the hardest part for Julie and she was doing everything in her power to not have to. That was until she realized the effects it had on Sam. The resolution came at the end of the book with this realization and a very soppy goodbye. The book developed relatively well, with only a little bit of the same thing going on during the rising action.

The way that this book was set up and written made it easy and quick to read. It's written from the first person point of view of Julie and it switches time periods of before, after, and now. Switching between these different points of time helps the book flow together and it keeps you interested. I found when there was a lot of the 'now' it became a little harder to read because it seemed pretty repetitive, but otherwise You've Reached Sam was a smooth read. Once I picked up the book I was so intrigued by the concept I ended up reading it in one sitting. I liked the pacing for most of the book and the amount of space between each of the time switches, but again, sometimes it was just too much of the same thing over and over again. I was partially expecting this before I started reading because it's one of those books where its like there's not many places that the author can go with it so that its interesting, but that it also still makes sense with the original plot line. Without too much going on, it made You've Reached Sam a really easy book to follow and finish in a quick manner.

You've Reached Sam got a 3.5/5 stars from me because it was a really good book that I read with relative ease, but it wasn't completely for me. This is a genre of book that I'm not used to reading, so it was interesting to try it out, but I could tell why I shy away from it a lot. I feel like in many YA romance books they all end with a very similar soppy goodbye (which I will admit got me sad) but it's very expected. That's a main reason why I couldn't rate this book any higher than I did because the ending was very predictable from the start and in books I love when unexpected things happen and drive the book. That's not to say I completely disliked this story though. I thought that You've Reached Sam had a very interesting story line and it was one that I have never seen before, personally. It was a really cute book that I saw on BookTok and I would say that it lived up to its word for the most part. Mostly just because I don't get that emotional when reading books I wasn't as into this one as the majority was, but the ending did get me. Overall, I thought that You've Reached Sam was a pretty good book, especially as it was out of my normal range of books. I would definitely recommenced it to someone who is more into the YA romance tropes.