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A review by coldbrewedpages
Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi
5.0
I went into this book with a lot of negative expectations, and I'm very happy that I ended up reading this book despite what I expected from it.
It's very rare that I find an author who is able to capture themes and ideas like trauma, toxic relationships, substance abuse/addiction, microaggressions and outright racism, dealing with peer expectations as an adult, facing overwhelming circumstances as an adult (particularly a young one) and do it so organically alongside an equally organic romance subplot. I don't think with the YA that I've read I've come across characters that are like Penny and Sam: normal people, with normal people problems, trying to figure their shit out with the limited resources that they have.
I was utterly caught off guard by how human Penny and Sam were. Blown away even more when you come to realize that the amount of nuance and detail put into making Penny's personality, character choices, and character growth fit into the context of the story, you're given a young adult woman who is navigating through dealing with what's very obviously depression and PTSD in the only way she knows how: alone. Until she meets Sam and both of them through their interactions grow from self-contained introverts with issues that feel too big for them into young adults that are working toward healing and getting better. While I gravitate more toward Penny's story and POV because I can relate a lot to her, I also found Sam's struggle with literally everything in his life from his anxiety to feeling overwhelmed about his family's expectations of him, very relatable, especially being a 20-something trying to get their life together.
I felt like this is what a lot of contemporary YA does when it tries to hit hard on the serious things the "young people" are going through, but it reads like it was written by someone who actually understands what it's like to be a person who's gone through an assault that they've never dealt with, or substance abuse, or the looming possibility of working a barely min. wage job and finding out you might be a parent. It's never over dramatized. The mental health issues present are never smattered over the pages in meticulously artistic prose that feels more like an attempt at depth over giving genuine human experiences. I have to commend Choi for taking Penny and Sam and giving them to us as human beings and not what I often find is the romanticized ideal that a lot of characters fall into when characters with Penny and Sam's backgrounds and struggles are given the limelight. It never felt contrived and even as the issues between characters are resolved through this book, I always felt like I could pinpoint parts in my own life where things happened similarly, and I think that's one of the many accomplishments of this book: while Penny and Sam might be fiction their lives are very much real.
I very rarely find nothing to complain about over a book. I devoured this in a day and I'm still reeling.
It's very rare that I find an author who is able to capture themes and ideas like trauma, toxic relationships, substance abuse/addiction, microaggressions and outright racism, dealing with peer expectations as an adult, facing overwhelming circumstances as an adult (particularly a young one) and do it so organically alongside an equally organic romance subplot. I don't think with the YA that I've read I've come across characters that are like Penny and Sam: normal people, with normal people problems, trying to figure their shit out with the limited resources that they have.
I was utterly caught off guard by how human Penny and Sam were. Blown away even more when you come to realize that the amount of nuance and detail put into making Penny's personality, character choices, and character growth fit into the context of the story, you're given a young adult woman who is navigating through dealing with what's very obviously depression and PTSD in the only way she knows how: alone. Until she meets Sam and both of them through their interactions grow from self-contained introverts with issues that feel too big for them into young adults that are working toward healing and getting better. While I gravitate more toward Penny's story and POV because I can relate a lot to her, I also found Sam's struggle with literally everything in his life from his anxiety to feeling overwhelmed about his family's expectations of him, very relatable, especially being a 20-something trying to get their life together.
I felt like this is what a lot of contemporary YA does when it tries to hit hard on the serious things the "young people" are going through, but it reads like it was written by someone who actually understands what it's like to be a person who's gone through an assault that they've never dealt with, or substance abuse, or the looming possibility of working a barely min. wage job and finding out you might be a parent. It's never over dramatized. The mental health issues present are never smattered over the pages in meticulously artistic prose that feels more like an attempt at depth over giving genuine human experiences. I have to commend Choi for taking Penny and Sam and giving them to us as human beings and not what I often find is the romanticized ideal that a lot of characters fall into when characters with Penny and Sam's backgrounds and struggles are given the limelight. It never felt contrived and even as the issues between characters are resolved through this book, I always felt like I could pinpoint parts in my own life where things happened similarly, and I think that's one of the many accomplishments of this book: while Penny and Sam might be fiction their lives are very much real.
I very rarely find nothing to complain about over a book. I devoured this in a day and I'm still reeling.