You've Found Oliver by Dustin Thao

Sunday, Apr. 5, 2026--San Antonio

You've Found Oliver by Dustin Thao is a novel by a writer who will be attending the San Antonio Book Festival this month.  It's a follow-up book to one about Oliver's best friend entitled You've Reached Sam which I have not read.  In this book, Oliver and Julie (Sam's girl friend) have become close friends in their efforts to deal with Sam's death.  Unknown to Julie, however, is that Oliver has been "talking" one-way to Sam by texting his phone number regulary.  A year has passed, and while thinking of stopping and erasing the texts as an effort to move on with his life, Oliver accidentally dials the number.  A man answers.  It's not Sam, but it is another male college freshman named Ben who now has been assigned Sam's old number.  Oliver is a bit embarrassed about the texts he has sent, but Ben downplays that concern and explains that he didn't block the number because it seemed as if Oliver needed to send the texts as a way of dealing with the loss of his best friend.  From there, it becomes the story of Oliver and Ben who happen to both be gay.  Oliver goes to Central Washington University and Ben goes to the University of Washington.  They decide to meet and seem to like each other.  But strange things keep happening at the beginning of each meeting.  Then they realize that at each meeting it is always late fall in Ben's life, but early spring in Oliver's.  What is going on?  How could this be happening?  And why, when they meet in Seattle or in Ellenburg, it is always on Ben's time line?  It becomes an interesting story of trying to figure everything out as the two find themselves falling in love and noticing that unexpected things are changing in the lives of others they know because of their new connection to each other.  It only took parts of two days to read the story.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.