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A review by ciuli
Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi
2.0
2/5
TW: cheating, talk of abortion, rape, mentions of alcoholism
I'm giving this book two stars just because 1) it had potential 2) Jude is the real MVP and she's the only character that made sense in this book.
Confusing, that's the word I'd use to explain this book. The characters are confusing, the plot is messy (can that be considered a plot at all?). Penny is a half-korean girl with a troubled relationship with her mother. When she moves to college, through her roommate Jude she meets Sam, who is kind of Jude's uncle but he's really not. After an incident, the two start texting each other, jokingly calling the other their 'emergency contact' and start building a friendship through texts.
I think this book had lots of potential but it was just downright messy. I couldnt really emphasize with the characters, we get glimpse of their lives apart from each other, but these parts are just left there and don't influence the main story at all? What was the point of focusing on Sam's documentary, if it was just going to be dismissed in the end? Same thing for Penny's creative writing classes. I thought they were going to serve a purpose, either for the plot or the character development, but they were just useless.
Also, I don't really get Penny's relationship with her mother. I get that Penny is too much in her head and preoccupies herself more than she should, but the way her mother flips that in the end is just psychologically abusive? You can't expect me to suddenly feel pity for her mother because her daughter is distant from her, when three chapters earlier you told that said daughter once smashed her head on the ground when she was 6 and she had to go to her neighbors to ask for help instead of home. When said mother left her kid at home alone at night to go on dates. Sam's meeting with his mother at least made much more sense, at least it was in line with what had been said up till that point.
I really think that this book had potential, but it got totally lost in this whole mess.
TW: cheating, talk of abortion, rape, mentions of alcoholism
I'm giving this book two stars just because 1) it had potential 2) Jude is the real MVP and she's the only character that made sense in this book.
Confusing, that's the word I'd use to explain this book. The characters are confusing, the plot is messy (can that be considered a plot at all?). Penny is a half-korean girl with a troubled relationship with her mother. When she moves to college, through her roommate Jude she meets Sam, who is kind of Jude's uncle but he's really not. After an incident, the two start texting each other, jokingly calling the other their 'emergency contact' and start building a friendship through texts.
I think this book had lots of potential but it was just downright messy. I couldnt really emphasize with the characters, we get glimpse of their lives apart from each other, but these parts are just left there and don't influence the main story at all? What was the point of focusing on Sam's documentary, if it was just going to be dismissed in the end? Same thing for Penny's creative writing classes. I thought they were going to serve a purpose, either for the plot or the character development, but they were just useless.
Also, I don't really get Penny's relationship with her mother. I get that Penny is too much in her head and preoccupies herself more than she should, but the way her mother flips that in the end is just psychologically abusive? You can't expect me to suddenly feel pity for her mother because her daughter is distant from her, when three chapters earlier you told that said daughter once smashed her head on the ground when she was 6 and she had to go to her neighbors to ask for help instead of home. When said mother left her kid at home alone at night to go on dates. Sam's meeting with his mother at least made much more sense, at least it was in line with what had been said up till that point.
I really think that this book had potential, but it got totally lost in this whole mess.