Dustin Thao
Autore di You've Reached Sam
Opere di Dustin Thao
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 12
- Utenti
- 1,039
- Popolarità
- #24,780
- Voto
- 3.7
- Recensioni
- 22
- ISBN
- 21
- Lingue
- 8
For folks who read the premise and think they'll like it, for a very singular dive into one person and issue
Thoughts:
For such a normal-length book, this felt like it flew by. In this case... that's not exactly a good thing (or a bad thing). This book sets out to tell the story of Julie's guilt and grief over Sam's death, and that's exactly what it tells. The weird thing is that it's also the only thing that it tells. This book has a very tight focus on the issue it aims to address. While, again, that's not a bad thing, it was strange in that it ended up reading more like short story for me since there was only one thread to the plot.
I suppose I expected a little more depth of the world around them, but Julie remains very much the focus as she is drowning in her own grief and hurt. Fair, I mean, grieving and all. There was a bit with other characters who were close to Sam -- his best friend, his sister and parents, his classmates -- but the way it was presented was so topical and unimportant precisely because Julie is so wallow-deep in her own issues. It's accurate for sure, but presenting the others as second fiddle ended up being exactly how they stayed to me.
Julie is not my favorite person, so my empathy was a bit lacking for what I would expect in this subject matter. Everyone grieves differently, but even ignoring that aspect, the who that makes her up was underwhelming.
Last thing that dropped this for me: the alternating timeline between before and after Sam's death. I don't usually mind that, but here it felt like a very lazy way of establishing who he was. We can't go back in time to get him back, so I would have liked the story to reflect that in it's style by relying on characters and memory to define Sam. He's dead -- he can no longer define himself, and exists only from the people and place he's remembered in.
Even though this book flew by, it also d r a g g e d. I didn't want to finish this, and in fact stopped a few chapters in on my first attempt. This story didn't elicit emotion from me, which isn't good considering it's a sad story about death and grief and heartbreak, coupled with the fact that I am a very easy crier with my sympathetic heartstrings! This one was sadly lacking for me.
Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday books for an free advanced copy of this title. This is my honest and voluntary review!
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