The Call I Almost Missed: 365 Days Without a Cell Phone and What It Taught Me About Love, Presence, and the Lies We Live

by Tommy Short

Tommy Short never missed a call. But he almost missed himself.



In 2023, Tommy Short, keynote speaker and author, gave up his phone for a year.



He discovered that he wasn't just addicted to the device; he was addicted to the identity it allowed him to curate. To being in control. To the dopamine drips of notifications and likes. To the illusion that he was important. Tommy thought losing his phone would be the hard part.



He was wrong.



Told through a series of intimate letters to his two young daughters, The Call I Almost Missed is part memoir, part manifesto. In this deeply personal exploration of identity, fatherhood, marriage, faith, and the sacredness of slowing down, Tommy invites you into the year that remade him. Poetic, piercing, and profoundly human, The Call I Almost Missed isn’t about giving up your phone. It’s about reclaiming your soul.

Genres: Nonfiction

358 pages, Paperback

Published March 24, 2026

Reviews

[Esther Nussbaum]

kind of ironic that you need a phone or another device to read it

[Book Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tommy Short’s The Call I Almost Missed is a yearlong spiritual and emotional memoir told as a sequence of short letters to his daughters, and that shape gives the book its heartbeat. The premise is simple enough to hook you fast: a father turns off his cell phone for 365 days after his daughter asks, “Daddy, why are you always on your phone?” But the book quickly grows beyond experiment or stunt. It becomes a running conversation about attention, fatherhood, ambition, fear, faith, and the private ways people drift away from themselves. The letter format keeps the book intimate, and the repeated “What if” chapter titles give it a reflective rhythm that feels less like an argument and more like a man thinking out loud in real time.

What makes the book work is that Short writes with the urgency of someone who knows he’s been sleepwalking and doesn’t want to waste the wake-up call. He’s strongest when he ties his big ideas to ordinary scenes: a bedtime routine, a haircut gone sideways, a walk with his wife, a quiet panic attack, a rainy stop at the park before school. Those moments keep the book grounded. When he writes, “Presence isn’t proximity. It’s attention,” he lands on the book’s central claim in a way that feels real, not packaged. That line keeps echoing because the whole book is an effort to prove it, one family moment at a time.

The book is also a self-portrait of a man shedding identities that once made him feel valuable. Short writes about officiating basketball, speaking work, masculinity, control, and the reflex to stay reachable at all times. That gives the memoir a real arc. It isn’t just about removing a device. It’s about watching performance fall away and seeing what survives. I liked that he understands this process as both tender and disruptive. The book keeps returning to the cost of becoming more honest, especially in marriage, family life, and faith. Even when he gets intense, there’s a real vulnerability underneath it, and that’s what keeps the book from feeling abstract.

Stylistically, this is a devotional memoir with a motivational streak. Some readers will find the repetition calming; others may find it a bit much, but the repetition is part of the design. The book wants to ponder, not rush your thinking. Short’s best image for that approach comes early, when he says, “This book is not a map. Maps promise routes and destinations. But life rarely works that way.” That line explains the whole reading experience. You don’t move through this book to gather a neat system. You move through it to sit with its questions, and to notice how often it asks you to reconsider the life you’re building while you’re busy trying to manage it.

What I liked most is how clearly the book knows what it wants to be: a record of choosing presence on purpose. It’s a father’s testimony, a spiritual inventory, and a collection of letters meant to outlast the season that produced them. By the end, the phone itself almost feels secondary, which is exactly the point. The real subject is a human life becoming more awake. If you like memoirs that lean into reflection, family, and hard-won tenderness, this one has a lot to offer. It feels personal without being sealed off, and sincere without hiding its rough edges.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of letters to the author's young daughters during a year of being totally disconnected from his smart phone.

There are some sweet and beautiful moments and realizations. Some gold nuggets. And some repeating the same lesson (or variations) a few times (sounds like me!).

Took a while to get through. A lot of notes about fatherhood; not as many about other facets of life like being a husband, brother, or a coworker (I think the author is a freelancer so he may not have many in his defense). Some of the lessons are a bit romanticized through the lens of giving my kids wisdom that they will one day need as opposed to being real with others about the struggle right now - but that's his artistic choice for how he wanted to share what he learned through the year. It mostly works.

I'd tune in to him for a Ted Talk after this.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.

[Dr. B · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really struggled to get through this one.

The writing style didn’t do it any favours, it felt overly artificial, almost as if it lacked a genuine voice. Because of that, I found it really hard to connect with the narrative or take its reflections seriously.

It’s a shame, because the premise had real potential, especially with its focus on stepping away from technology and exploring identity. But in the end, the execution just didn’t work for me.

[Sarah Buron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I will recommend to everyone. The author went phone-free for a year (yes, 365 whole days!) and it is written via journal entries to his two daughters. It's very touching with life lessons and reminders throughout - I plan to read it again at some point. Thanks so much to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review - pub day is 3/31/26!

[Bryce · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like it, yet the writing style was written for someone without an attention span. There were many, what felt like, empty platitudes throughout. The author and AI would get along very well as they write in the same style.

[Eli Gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Then premise was intriguing. And yet the writing was incredibly repetitive & even painful most of the time. Reads like it was written with Ai, which was disappointing. Yet there were some good takeaways

[Literary Redhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging and important memoir about going cell-phone free for a year, a feat I don't think I could ever do. Thought-provoking!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway!!

It was surprisingly good.

[Christy Thorson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. Much too long and too religious for my taste.