e-Audio, 09:39:37
Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
Release Date: November 9, 2021
Published by: Macmillan Audio
Read from: November 21- December 2, 2021
Stand-alone
Source: Library’s Overdrive
TW: Car Accident with later result of death
For Readers Interested In: Magical Realism, Romance, Realistic Fiction, Tear Jerkers, Own Voices, YASeventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies. And everything changes.
Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries everything to forget him and the tragic way he died. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces back memories. Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail.
And Sam picks up the phone.
In a miraculous turn of events, Julie’s been given a second chance at goodbye. The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam’s voice makes her fall for him all over again, and with each call it becomes harder to let him go. However, keeping her otherworldly calls with Sam a secret isn’t easy, especially when Julie witnesses the suffering Sam’s family is going through. Unable to stand by the sidelines and watch their shared loved ones in pain, Julie is torn between spilling the truth about her calls with Sam and risking their connection and losing him forever.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I remember seeing this when it was first announced and I was so excited. This sounded so good. So when I finally got my hands on it, I knew it would be good, but I didn’t know it was going to be THAT good.
Julie and Sam have it all figured out. They’ll finish high school, move in together, and then spend the rest of their lives together. But then everything changes when Sam dies. Julie is heartbroken and does everything in her power to get rid of him. She calls his phone one last time to listen to his voicemail…. But he picks up.
I knew this was going to be amazing when I was hooked from the synopsis alone. I remember reading this as an e-ARC at first, but less than half way there I had to buy a hardcover because it was so good. Like I knew it was going to be good, but not this good. Though it did get repetitive towards the middle, I still loved the writing style.
But be careful, this is definitely a tear jerker. I remember getting teary for the first time around chapter 4. But still, take this with a grain of salt…. I am a huge crier lol I cry from small things, so it’s no surprise that I got teary. But I was surprised that it happened so early. I was expecting to be bawling at the end, but not at the very beginning lol
The characters were easily my favorite part. Julie was so sad and I hated seeing how her grief was hurting her. But damn if she wasn’t handling it like a boss. Grief is a hard thing to navigate, so I can completely understand why she went to call him one last time. To be honest with you, I have been some aunts and uncles phone numbers still saved in my phone that are still there after they passed years ago. I felt her so much. And then there was Sam. His memory of course showed him only as amazing, so of course I loved him. Everything was cool. I loved the before chapters and was continuously hurt by the afters. I just loved basically everything about them. They were so real and I hated what happened to them.
The only thing I didn’t like about this, (besides the repetitiveness) was the way they handled the ending. I read the whole book to find out how she was getting through to him. I thought it was her phone was on airplane mode and that’s how she missed everything and she was talking to herself. And then I thought it was something like the grief that was making her talk to herself, but that wasn’t specified either. So basically, there’s no reason why this is happening. I know this is because the book is labeled magical realism, but ugh it frustrated me. I really wanted to know what it was that was causing that lol
I liked this book so much I read it in 3 different formats: e-ARC, early e-Audio, and hardcover. I wanted to read this every chance I could get. This book had all the me things, and sure enough I loved it. I hope everyone who gets their hands on this loves it as much as I did!
Overall, I give this
