"Emergency Contact" was one of my most anticipated reads of 2018, with its cute premise and lovely cover. I’m all about the college contemporaries with romance. With a hilarious writing style, Choi delivers a memorable book.

I will admit that I struggled to get into this book. It felt like Penny spent a lot of time judging or clashing with other women and I just find that tedious. Yes, women are still sometimes at each other’s throats in reality. But I’m tired of it. The novel also relies on common stereotypes of the catty, ‘slutty’ girl. Thankfully, Choi turns these stereotypes into fleshed out characters. And over the course of the novel Penny begins to have much healthier relationships with women. I appreciate the change, and in fact it helped save the novel for me. The female friendships are lovely, and I appreciate seeing women support women (eventually).

One relationship I wasnt quite happy with the resolution of is Penny and her mom. Her mom does some irresponsible things and somehow says Penny has always been to sensitive. I find that a load of crap. Her pain and worry is not there for nothing, despite her having anxiety. If anything, her mom made her anxiety worse. I would’ve liked to see her mom take responsibility for her actions.

But the main plotline of the book is Penny and Sam’s relationship. Both are going through tough things, and because they barely know one another, they find it easier to confide their hopes and pains. They’re also super cute with their flirting and growing attraction. Sam isn’t perfect, but neither is Penny. In an age where people often make friends online, their relationship felt very relevant. I was rooting for them, and I loved their love. My only issue is that the ending is quite open, not too disimilar to Rainbow Rowell novels.

"Emergency Contact" is a a sweet novel about finding yourself, your friends, and your love in college. I think we need more college-based YA books, because it’s a period of big change in our lives. The depiction of women was sometimes off-putting as was the girl hate. But Choi slowly turns stereotypes on their head. The romance is also adorable. If you’re looking for a cute contemporary with some heavier themes, this book is for you.

This might just be one of the cutest books I've read in a while - and it was exactly what I was looking for right now!

Thanks so much to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC for an honest review, as always, all opinions are my own.

This story follows Penny as she starts her first year of college. Her high school career had been uneventful and she is ready to make a new name for herself outside of her association with her mother. Sam is stuck. He's got no money, no future, and he lives above the cafe he works at. Caught up in a toxic relationship, a friendship with Penny was the last thing he was expecting. But when she is assigned to be his sort-of niece's roommate, their paths collide. After swapping numbers, they become inseparable - on the phone - daily texts about everything from favourite baked good to mom issues to panic attacks.

Ok, so first of all, I thought this book had a really unique premise and one that really should be used more in YA - getting to know people online. In this day and age, you're more likely to make awkward conversation online than you are in real life, that's just how teens are these days. (oh boy, that makes me sound old! "Those teens these days!" *shakes stick*) Anyway, I really enjoyed that their relationship was set in a believable and unique 'location,' if you will.

I also loved the characters on their own, and then (of course) together. I really related a lot to Penny (I'm the grandma of the group and am always prepared!) and loved her insights into writing. Sam was great too, he had a lot on his plate and even when times were desperate, he persevered. They had a lot of chemistry between them, something else I've been noticing lately in YA - you can't just stick two people in a story and assume the reader is going to be fine with their relationship, regardless of chemistry - and I think Choi did a really good job of recognizing that.

This book was super cute at times, but also really deep and emotional. There are some more serious issues that both characters have to deal with. I won't get into spoilers, but I appreciated that (for the most part), these issues were well integrated into the story. There were a couple where they felt a little bit like they were thrown in last minute but, for the most part, Choi made them a part of the character.

The diversity in this book is also something I'm noticing as a big selling feature for a lot of people, and I think Choi does a great job of addressing that in the book itself. Penny is in a writing class at college and they have a very interesting, frank discussion on voices in literature and diversity. It was really great to see the concerns of POC echoed in the novel, one of the things Penny mentions is that she wants to be a writer, but doesn't know of many Korean writers like herself, and when she pictures the character a story, she automatically pictures white characters. I know this is something that a lot of people have mentioned more recently in regards to reading more diversely, and it was really interesting to see it reflected in a fictional character.

Overall, there were a few very minor issues I had with this book, but otherwise, I thought it was adorable and thought-provoking. I would highly recommend!

I was so excited to read this, but once again NetGalley has let me down with putting up a copy that is only protected PDF (please look into putting that on the request pages). I can only read e-books on my Kindle, so this was disappointing to find. 5 stars, as that is what I hope it is.

Emergency Contact is smart, witty, and remarkably engaging once it gets rolling!

Penny is a college freshman who is studying to become a writer. Sam is struggling to finish a filmmaking course while trying to make ends meet. Bizarre serendipity throws them together after Sam has just found out that his cheating ex-girlfriend (whom he silent-nicknamed “Liar”) tells him that they are pregnant. In one of many delightfully entertaining quirky moments, Penny and Sam become each other’s “emergency contacts”. They seem to have nothing in common. But in time, you find out that they sort of do.

This is a great book for readers who love profound, well-developed characters that are entirely relatable. Sam and Penny really grow on you with their sincere introspections and secret insecurities. I really enjoyed the clever insights, ironic commentary, and precious details that were poured into this story.

While the side premise of a student writer discussing writing in class and writing a story-within-a-story as her final assignment might be a distraction to Emergency Contacts main storyline, I found it very entertaining as well. I feel this author’s love of writing. Mary H K Choi is a debut author to watch.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an advanced eARC in exchange for my honest review. Amazing read. This book was absolutely up my alley. The characters were engaging and captivating. Will definitely be buying this to add to my collection and will be keeping my eye out for future works from this author

Eighteen-year-old Penny Lee happily escapes life with her mother to head off to university in Austin, Texas to study creative writing. Sam Becker is the twenty-two year old employee at House Coffee, living in a room upstairs from the café, baking tasty treats in the early morning hours, and struggling to find the means and the inspiration to continue his film studies and make a documentary. They meet one day at the café when Penny’s roommate, Jude – who happens, in a complicated, blended family sort of way to be Sam’s niece (well, ex-niece, since the marriage between Sam’s mother and Jude’s grandfather didn’t stick) – insists that she, Penny, and another friend, Mallory, go for coffee.

If this all sounds complicated, well, it is. Both Penny and Sam have complicated, messy lives, and they’re doing their best to muddle through and make something of those lives. When Sam’s toxic now-ex-girlfriend announces she’s pregnant, Sam finds himself so stressed that he has a massive panic attack (which he, understandably, mistakes for a heart attack) right on the street. Penny just happens to be there, and helps him through it – leading the two to exchange phone numbers and become each other’s “emergency contact’. Though it’s meant to be only for emergencies, Sam and Penny begin messaging each other, staying in touch via their phones, sharing both the mundane details of their lives, and asking each other questions they might not have had the courage to ask if they were face to face.

Emergency Contact is Mary H.K. Choi’s first novel, but she brings a wealth of experience as a writer for such publications as The New York Times, GQ, Wired, and The Atlantic to the table. Choi’s prose is sharp and witty, and she manages to explore themes and issues that are relevant to the generation she’s writing about. Penny experiences casual racism, which she counters with logic, never brushing it off. That said, she’s also ambivalent about her Korean-American identity – she’s frustrated that she can’t seem to write characters like herself, but she’s also aware that she’s never actually encountered them in the books she likes to read, either.

Choi manages to capture the relationship between Penny and her mother, Celeste, in the course of a few short paragraphs. Penny feels she needs to protect her mother, who she sees as air-headed and flirty. It’s clear, though, that Penny sees only the “mother” – Celeste is in her late 30s, but her daughter can’t see that her mother is still quite young, and she doesn’t see the “woman” in her mother (understandably so, though a photo of Rain in Celeste’s “Korean corner” of their home might have given her daughter a clue), which leaves Penny feeling she has no option but to protect her mother, adding a stress to her plans for leaving for college.

Choi explores, to some extent, the ways in which we communicate and connect using technology, contrasted with the ways we do that without the use of our various devices. Penny finally finds a story subject that allows her to present a Korean protagonist and combine it with her love of science fiction and gaming; she realizes, eventually, that her story parallels what is happening to her and Sam as they take their relationship off their phones and into “real” life.

If there’s any downside to Choi’s work, it’s that I found the story’s resolution a little bit abrupt – but perhaps, too, that’s a reflection of the fact that I was so invested in these characters and their stories that I just wanted to keep on learning more about them and their relationship. Penny and Sam are terrific characters, both vulnerable, both misfits on some level, yet intelligent, funny, and caring in equal measure. I liked them so much that in the end, I don’t think I was ready to let them go.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book - all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect going into this story - and it completely stole my heart.

Penny Lee has never fit in anywhere in her life, and she cannot wait to get to college, far away from all the things she is dying to leave behind. Sam is a local barista whose life seems stuck in a holding pattern that he can't break out of, trapping him and holding him back from being the adult he thinks he should be. When their paths cross in completely unexpected ways, they find themselves connecting beyond anything they ever thought possible.

This story has two of the most awkward, strange, flawed and completely lovable lead characters I have ever read. I became so quickly invested in both Penny and Sam's lives, that it felt like having them as friends of my own.

That being said, I can genuinely say that every main character was remarkably likable, even when they were doing unlikable things. Mary H.K. Choi writes such humanity in her characters, making the reader intimately connect with each one time and time again.

I fell so deeply in love with this story, rooting along for Penny and Sam and the absolute magnificent awkwardness of their quietly budding friendship. I would happily read volumes of stories about these two and where life takes each of them.

Mary H.K. Choi has written something truly magical with this tale of the perfect imperfection that is life and growing up. This is an incredible debut, and should without question, be on your to-read list this spring.

I received a copy of this to read from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. When I read the description of this book, i was excited because it sounded like a story I would love, but as I read it, I had a different reaction. I almost DNF the book, it was so slow, and the writing was annoying me and the characters were not drawing me in. I stepped away from the book, read something else, and then gave this one another go. Still didn’t like the characters and all the text slang was annoying, but I made it to the end.

"Emergency Contact" is a witty and real romance. Penny has just started college and feels the weight of everything. She is searching for perfection, but finds reality. Sam is living paycheque to paycheque in the back room of the coffee shop he works at. He is recently out of a relationship, but that's been as hard on him as the relationship was. Penny and Sam's worlds collide and they find themselves increasingly entangled with each other. Their text relationship is endearing. They are quirky, real, and sweet.

While perhaps not the next "Eleanor and Park", "Emergency Contact" is a great read. It is a messy, but sweet romance; an enjoyable YA novel.

3.5/5 stars

Thank you, NetGalley, for a free preview of Emergency Contact in exchange for an honest review.

In Penny and Sam, I found a lot to like. They've both been through some crap, they both have their own stuff going on, and they seem to find in each other a safe harbour where they can be themselves and not worry about judgement. I felt like maybe Penny drove the story more than Sam did. I didn't mind that, as I didn't like Sam as much as Penny. Some of the interactions didn't go as I expected them to, which I appreciated, though there were a couple of niggling details that I never got all the way over.

All in all, the hours I spent reading Emergency Contact was time well-spent. I'd recommend the book to anyone who likes coming-of-age stories, romantic stories with protagonists who have struggled and look at the world with harder eyes, though there is description of a rape, so I would qualify my recommendation with that warning.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mary H. K. Choi for allowing me to read and review an ARC of Emergency Contact. I thought it was a solid novel, and I will be recommending it to a few teens that I know would like it. 4/5

Choi is a born story-teller.

As a massive contemporary lover, this book was perfect for me. It was cute and awkward and delightful and stressful and sad and sweet. This story is told from duel POVs.

The characters are so beautifully flawed.
Penny's neurotic nuances were charming and fun, and it made her very relatable.
Sam...a lanky guy with tattoos who can bake? Sign me up please! Reading his POV and learning of his past, just completely captured me heart.
I couldn't even say whose POV I enjoyed more.

My only criticism would be that I would have liked to know how Penny's story and Sam's movie turned out.

If you're a contemporary fan, you definitely need to pick this baby up! It's a great read after reading heavy subject matter. Not too fluffy so that you feel disinterested, but sweet enough that you completely loose yourself in Choi's incredible story.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I tried to like this book and the premise seemed really promising to me, but I just couldn't get into it. The characters seemed forced and I didn't like them or how they interacted with each other. This just wasn't a book for me.

EMERGENCY CONTACT was pitched as something something ELEANOR & PARK or something something Rainbow Rowell. I can't remember which but either way it amounts to the same thing. So I requested it faster than the speed of light because I've pretty much loved everything by Rowell and in general I'm always excited about more college-based YA(ish) fiction.

But this isn't the happy, erring on the side of fluffy, bit of romantic comedy with a dash of Real Issues(tm) that I expected it to be. It was kind of a lot sad, definitely a lot of Real Issues(tm), and had a mostly.. I can't say unlikeable but definitely challenging and a rather atypical heroine. But the characters were well drawn, flawed, and there were layers of various issues scattered about and I thought all were handled really well. The characters were very vibrant, even if their personalities weren't always pleasant or easy, and the way they interacted was so great. I especially loved the texting conversations and the difficulty, yet ease, with which the MCs transitioned into real life. Or, as they called it, escalations. It was adorable.

Which is why overall it makes me sad that I didn't love this read. It was slow moving, kind of dull, in the beginning and I definitely loved the latter half best. And there were elements I so so enjoyed. But overall? It's no FANGIRL and it won't find it's way onto my shelf. However, I do think a lot of people will identify with it, not just because of the diversity, but because it did feel so real. The not so straight-forward family dynamics, complicated home situations, and the frustration with feelings that manifest in different ways, means there's a a little bit for everyone here and I think that'll resonate with a lot of people. Plus there's a great friendship-to-more element to sweeten the pot.

I'm not sure I'd recommend EMERGENCY CONTACT but if the plot hooks you enough to make you want to pick it up, I wouldn't tell you to put it down, either.

“As far as Young Adult dramas go, Mary H.K. Choi’s first attempt runs the gamut. It covers everything from unwanted pregnancy to class division, from racism to absent parents.

In typical Young Adult contemporary style, Choi’s novel gets us started with a pair of young people, unknown to each other, at a turning point in their lives. Penelope Lee is on her way to university for the first time, attempting to take a break from her overly involved, too cool to be allowed mom. Sam is attempting recovery on his own, from alcoholism, a toxic relationship, and a break with his mom who has been less than motherly to him.

For a first effort, Emergency Contact is a job well done.....”

Check out the link for the rest of my review.

“Loving someone is traumatizing”. This book explores the complicated relationships of the main character, Penny, as she goes away to college and struggles with new and old relationships... her mom, new roommate, and her new “emergency contact”, Sam. I had a bit of a hard time getting through this book, but it is a well written, down-to-earth young adult novel. The characters are complicated, real and flawed. It’s unlike anything I usually read, hence the difficulty getting through it, but it was enjoyable overall.

I will fully admit to wanting to read this one because of the cover, it’s stunning and sometimes that’s all I need. Luckily the contents of this book are even more beautiful than the cover and even though it’s been a few days I’m still not sure how to properly express how much I adored this story. I don’t consider myself to be a massive contemporary fan but then books like this come along and make me rethink my stance on my favourite genre because how could I not love a genre that contains masterpieces like this?

I loved the premise of this one, the POV’s alternate between Sam and Penny and it worked so well to show how their relationship progressed and what they were both going through. Penny’s chapters mostly took place in her dorm room or during her classes and Sam’s really focused on his life at the coffee shop and on his other relationships. I loved that the characters in this one were a bit older, 18 and 21, it made the story more relateable for me. Leaving home and experiencing life as an adult is something that most people have gone through/will go through and I think that it was done really well! I also found the way that these two met and how their relationship developed was super well done, it’s a series of accidental meetings that really bring them together and they end up growing while talking to each other and it’s just so beautiful to read!

I also really really loved the focus on other relationships in this one! The focus on friendship and making true friends later in life was so well done. I loved Jude and Mallory and it was so much fun watching Penny break out of her comfort zone a little bit and get to know them. I also loved the focus on family, both Sam and Penny have very different relationships with their mothers and both were seen as valid and full of different emotions and it was just beautiful. Also Sam’s relationship with Lorraine was really important, the way it was written was so important because toxic relationships and friendships are often romanticized in literature and it was nice to see a more realistic approach to it.

I really just loved Sam and Penny though, both as individuals and together. I could gush about how precious they are all night but this is a book that you really need to experience yourself. The way that it’s written is just absolutely stunning and I can’t recommend it enough. Pick this book up, it will hopefully leave you a mess of emotions like it did to me but I literally could not stop reading it and I will without a doubt be picking up a finished copy once it’s released.

Seriously. Read this book.

In the summary Emergency Contact is described as being perfect for fans of Eleanor& Park and To All The Boy’s I’ve Loved Before and to be completely honest I don’t really see the resemblance expect for the fact that they have all have an Asian Mc And that they’re all contemporaries but maybe that’s just me… I truly think that this is a book stands on its own and that any comparison would not do it justice. Basically if you’re someone who enjoys contemporaries and cute love stories that I highly recommend that you go out and buy this book when it comes out because it’s so adorable!

I feel like I kind of sometimes forget that not all contemporaries are cute or even good because I’ve had a pretty good streak when it comes to reading great contemporaries but this book reminded me how contemporaries like Emergency Contact are actually quite rare. So few books are able perfectly capture the awkwardness of love without making it super duper cringey. I think it reflects immensely on the writer’s skill when they’re able to develop the chemistry in a realistic manner. ( I love how I say this as I’m in any way knowledgeable about love 😂)

I really thought it was cool how the majority of their relationship developed over their text. I can definitely confirm that it’s a lot easier to talk to people and get to know them without the awkwardness that is real life. I also liked how slow the transition from online communications to in real life communication and I though that Choi handled that really well. I absolutely loved the stuff that they talked about via text and they were just the cutest together and the development from friends to more was great.

All of the characters were sooo great, especially our two protagonist, Sam and Penny. I related to Penny on so many levels, especially because she was a writer and also didn’t have many friends and she really resonated with me. Well I found the thing she was writing about to be a tad bit odd, I really identified with that struggle of trying to figure out where her writing was going. I really liked the relationships that she forged with like obviously Sam but also her roommate and her roommate’s best friend. Her roommate was very different from her and that was a problem at first but it was really sweet how they slowly started to become friends though there was quite a lot of bumps along the way. But what’s a YA contemporary without lots of misunderstandings and cringey confrontations. I also loved how complex Penny’s relationship with her mother was and I could really feel her frustration and exasperation and I thought it was really tactfully handled.

Sam was such a great love interest, oh my god. He was incredibly flawed but despite that he was caring, passionate and I just loved him so much and loved seeing his relationship with Penny develop. He also had a very complicated relationship with his mother and it was so heartbreaking to see him have to deal with that. While he definitely made some poor decisions, he also went through so much shit and I just felt so bad for him. I’m glad he found someone kind like Penny to be there for him.

I really wanted to like this book, the concept seemed to be refreshing and fun, but unfortunately I couldn't get into it at all. I did not connect with the characters what so ever, in fact they we're getting on my nerves like crazy. I was unable to finish this book, so take this review with a grain of salt, maybe it got better and I just don't know.

This story was a bit slow to get into but I'm glad I came back to it because once it got going after Sam and Penny found each other on the street it was really intoxicating. The characters felt real and had a lot of issues going on. I love quirky characters, and when stories are told through alternating characters and through text message instead of just reading a story! Very touching, while I found it a bit juvenile for college at the start, it grew to feel more young adult than teenagey. It was a good touch that the author focused on many issues because lots just focus on one which doesn't feel as true to life where there's always so much going on.