Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

She wondered if the rest of early adulthood would be like this—avoiding roommates, getting ripped off for bad fusion food, and the peculiar loneliness of being smothered by people she didn’t want to spend time with.

Having recently fallen in love with Choi’s most recent novel, Yolk, I was eager to read more by her. As debut novels go Emergency Contact is certainly a pretty solid one. It boasts the same sharp humor that made Yolk such a winsome read (for me) and it similarly focuses on somewhat messy ‘older’ young adults (ie college-aged).

Penny Lee is a college freshman who would like to leave her unremarkable hometown and high school experience behind. Penny was raised by her mother whose parenting style could be described as very casual. Celeste often acted more like a friend than a mother and Penny has grown increasingly resentful of this, having had to worry about/look after her since a young age. Penny wants to be a writer but in her creative writing assignments struggles to get ‘close’ to her characters. Her roommate, who comes from wealth and is fairly outgoing, tries to be friends with Penny but our girl has a habit of pushing people away.
Sam works (and lives) at a café and he isn’t coping all that well. He had an intense relationship with his ex and he still not over her. His mom is an alcoholic, his estranged father is the quintessential deadbeat dad, and he had dropped out of college because he couldn’t afford it. Sam is broke and heartbroken.
As fate would have it Penny and Sam meet each other. They begin texting each other assiduously, getting to know each other, offering words of comfort or advice, being ‘there’ for the other. Most of the book focuses on their struggles, be it at college, with their mothers, or their exes. Despite the lack of ‘shared’ scenes the author convincingly develops their relationship. Their dynamic was so sweet and authentic. Their banter and flirting are a delight to read.
Penny and Sam are far from well behaved or perfect. They are petty, make assumptions about other people, they hurt the people they care about, they aren’t always able to forgive others or to consider other people’s perspectives…all these things made them all the more believable and I appreciated that the narrative, other characters, if not they themselves, call them out on their behaviour. The narrative also doesn’t depict certain characters as wholly mean or cartoonishly horrible which made me like the story all the more.
Choi captures the worries, fears, and anxieties that come when you leave home or set off to college.
Enjoyable, funny, and not without its touching moments Emergency Contact will definitely appeal to those who are looking for a more realistic and frank YA romance/coming-of-age. If you’ve already read this book I thoroughly recommend you check out Yolk.

my rating: ★★★¾

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