booktribe's Reviews (603)

Boring af!

You’ve Reached Sam touches on one of your worst fears: the love of your life dying. But what would you do if you called his phone just to hear his voicemail one more time, and he answered? 

     This book is a love story with a beautiful magical realism aspect. The stunning cover of this book drew me in immediately. Then I read the synopsis and knew I just had to read it. 

     The story hooked me from the beginning. I already loved Sam as soon as I read the prologue. And I loved the side characters just as much! They had so much personality and were just as lovable as Sam.

     The only problem I had with this book is that I didn’t care for the main character, Julie. I didn’t connect with her at all. I didn’t hate her, but I definitely didn’t love her. She was exceedingly self centered. At the beginning of the book I figured it might just be her grief causing her to only think of herself, but as the book went on she barely improved. We can all get wrapped up in our own grief and forget others are grieving too, but the fact that she never got better at caring about others really bothered me. She only did things for others when she knew she should, not because she cared. Her personality is ultimately what made this a four star read instead of a five star.

     Other than that, I had no complaints about the book. The writing was beautiful! The way Thao transitions scenes during the chapters set before Sam’s death were so seamless. Those chapters really made me feel like I was there with them.

     I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys heartbreaking, character driven reads. 

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: Death, Grief

The Final Revival Of Opal and Nev is about the rise and fall of a 70’s Afropunk duo of Opal, an unapologetically outspoken Black woman, and Nev an easygoing, artistic White man. We get to see how the duo deals with all the usual music industry problems, as well as racist problems that come from having a Black woman as a lead in a 1970’s rock band. 

I really enjoyed this book! The story was told so well through the interviews. It can be hard reading a book written in the interview format without getting confused, but I never had that problem with this book. The timeline was very clear. This book really transported me into the story. I had to keep checking to make sure this book wasn’t non-fiction because it was so detailed and authentic! It really transported me into the 70’s. The characters felt like real people. No one was perfect. Everyone made mistakes. No characters were two-dimensional. I really felt like I knew these people. And Opal was so amazing! She made this book the perfect feminist read!

Now for the things I didn’t love about this book. It took me a little while to really get invested in the story, but once I got about 30% into the book, I was hooked. In the beginning, however, I had a hard time keeping up with the side characters. It took me a while to know the difference between Bob Hize and Howie Kelly as well as other pairs of characters that seemed similar to me, but as the story went on they became very distinct. Other than those two things, I had no other problems with the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves character driven stories about the 70’s, rock music, and standing up against racist ideologies.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster/37 Ink and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: racism, hate crimes, use of the n-word