You've Reached Sam

Solid 3 stars. It wasn't bad necessarily but I wasn't a big fan of Julie and the way she acted in spite of everything. I found her to be quite selfish and rude (especially to her also grieving friends and family???) and although I know part of that was her grief that she needs to get over, even after that I just didn't care for her character. (Like when she claimed that the reason she decided to hang out w her grieving friend is because she “has empathy because she's a writer”??? And only bc he offered to pay??? Then she proceeds to buy THREE SCOOPS OF ICE CREAM??? Grief doesn't make u entitled and greedy). Her relationship with Sam also felt slightly flat, like I didn't really feel the sadness or the yearning between them. Their conversations were really cheesy and felt superficial. I liked the side characters much more and cared more about their relationships with Sam than Julie's - although even with Mika and James who get to speak to Sam the emotion felt... off? I was really disappointed by the lack of explanation behind the phone calls too. My heart aches at the concept of this book but the execution unfortunately just did not do it for me. That being said though I probably definitely would have loved it if I had read it when I was 16 and can understand why people would love this book, but there were just a few too many things that bothered me and I was disappointed that it didn't make me cry like it promised to. So yeah. 3 stars.