Review by nnneato - Emergency Contact

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nnneato 's review for:

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

1.5

tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I clocked Penny as autistic pretty early in the novel. It's never explicitly stated, but I think it's there. After finishing, I looked up the author and surprise surprise, she was diagnosed as an adult. Writers write what they know...

That being said, I understand and relate to Penny's personality. I don't mind her being judgemental, which seems to be a common complaint. The one thing that I dislike that doesn't seem to change throughout the novel is her inability to confront people. However, I acknowledge that this is an extremely common personality flaw. I wish that it had been resolved by the time Penny has her final confrontation with her mother though. Because it wasn't and the argument was somehow resolved, it was not cathartic. As the reader, I don't believe that either party understands each other any more than they did before.

Although I found the story and format interesting, more things bothered me than satisfied me when it came to this novel. A major recurring thought of mine was that this would be a better novel if Penny weren't fresh out of high school. This book could have been set in Penny's sophomore year and nothing would have changed.

Penny's rape seemed shoehorned into the story. It was well-described and made sense, but it's never related to any other quirks Penny might have in the present, so what's the point? Somewhat tangentially, I found it funny that Jude's therapist was mentioned so often when it was Penny who really needed therapy. No one ever suggests that she gets some even though it's often available at college campuses for free or at a low cost.

Sam was a likeable character, but I wish he had a better story arc. Is it crazy that I picked this up because I thought he was going to have multiple panic attacks, not just one? He seemed to get over the situation with his ex fairly easily after relapsing with alcohol. That would have been a good time for another spiral that took the story in a different direction. Ultimately, I don't think Penny and Sam are a good match - the story would have been more impactful if they remained friends and continued working on themselves.

I could not have cared less about the story Penny was writing for class or the film Sam was making. Actually, scratch that - I am annoyed that it seems Sam just threw away everything after running into a hurdle. The logical course of action would have been to film a documentary about his mom or someone else and leave the other material on the back burner, right? This thread is left completely unresolved and it seems careless.

As a final note that has led me to reduce my rating to a "hate-read this if you'd like" designation: The writing is bad. The author clearly has some good ideas, but none of them land. The dialogue sounds like an adult trying to be hip and trendy. This is not how teenagers talked in 2018. Just write without trying to match the current slang. Also, the constant breaking up of texts into one liners that made it look like poetry (unintentionally?) pissed me off. People really do write blocks of text as messages sometimes. It's okay.

Overall, just not a good story.

Content Warnings