You've Reached Sam

You've Reached Sam is a 2021 young adult novel by Vietnamese-American author Dustin Thao. The book received coverage from multiple independant publications, with reviewers noting its exploration of grief, teenage loss, and emotional healing.

The novel centers Julie Clarke, a high school senior whose life falls apart after the sudden death of her boyfriend Sam Obayashi. The book is part of a series called You’ve Reached Sam series with a subsequent book titled You’ve Found Oliver.

Julie Clarke is a high school senior whose life is closely tied to her boyfriend, Sam Obayashi. They share a loving relationship and make plans for the future together. One day, Sam dies unexpectedly in a car accident while driving to pick her up. Devastated, Julie isolates herself from friends and family, avoids memorials, and discards Sam’s belongings in an attempt to erase reminders of him.

In her grief, Julie calls Sam’s old phone number, hoping only to hear his voicemail. To her shock, Sam answers and speaks to her as if he were alive. Neither fully understands the connection, but Julie begins using the calls to revisit memories, share her feelings, and ask questions she had never asked before. While comforting, the calls consume her attention, causing her to neglect friends, school, and family, and creating tension in her relationships.

Julie’s best friends, including Mika (Sam’s cousin) and Oliver (Sam’s best friend), notice her withdrawal and express concern, but she prioritizes the calls over their attempts to reach her. She faces criticism from peers and struggles with guilt and denial over Sam’s death, further complicating her grieving process.

Over time, Julie realizes that the calls, though comforting, prevent her from processing her grief and engaging with her life. She gradually reconnects with Mika, Oliver, and her family, sharing memories of Sam and participating in activities that honor him. She helps Sam’s younger brother, James, cope with his own grief, and resumes responsibilities she had neglected, including work and writing.

Julie and Sam share a final meaningful phone conversation near the end of her senior year. They express their enduring love, and Sam asks her not to answer the next time he calls. When the final call comes, she keeps her promise, and Sam leaves a voicemail she can revisit whenever she needs comfort. After this, Julie begins receiving messages and calls from her real life that she had missed, signaling her readiness to move forward.

The story ends with Julie taking steps to reintegrate into her life, attending college, continuing her friendships, and carrying her memories of Sam with her, while no longer relying on the supernatural connection to cope with his absence.

Dustin Thao said that the story isn’t based on a true event or autobiography. He also revealed that the idea of You’ve Reached Sam (especially the concept of talking to someone you’ve lost) was something he’d carried with him for a long time and thought about deeply. He wrote the book during a period in his life when he had experienced loss himself, including the death of a close friend from high school. He has mentioned that revisiting old messages and voice recordings with that friend influenced his thinking about how people hold on to memories and voices after someone dies. Thao has noted that these personal experiences helped shape the emotional core of the story, even though the plot itself is fictional.^[1][2]

The novel received mixed to positive reviews.

American author and voice actress Alethea Kontis highlighted the novel’s emotional sincerity and its handling of grief, noting its ability to convey loss in a manner accessible to younger audiences. She also praised the book’s focus on emotional connection and healing, describing it as a story that prioritizes character emotion over plot complexity.^[3]

Amanda Nojadera, writing for Common Sense Media, praised the book's portrayal of grief and it's emotional accessibility for young adult readers, while noting its reliance on familiar genre tropes.^[4]

Kirkus Reviews described the novel as a narrative that “revolves around grief” and noted that while the central concept—the protagonist receiving phone calls from her deceased boyfriend—is intriguing, the execution sometimes felt uneven. The review remarked that the emotional impact of key events could be diminished by a steady, detailed focus on everyday moments, and that occasional time jumps were difficult to follow, but that the premise was likely to engage readers interested in themes of separation and loss.^[5]

School Library Journal observed that the book’s exploration of grief is interesting but suggested that its slow pacing and episodic structure could make the story feel protracted. The review also highlighted the inclusion of cultural references and diverse secondary characters, noting that these were handled with sensitivity, though it remarked that the number of characters might have been challenging to manage effectively.^[6]