I went into this expecting a light fluffy romance and came away with so much more. The characters are well developed and have a lot going on in their lives. They are so complicated and human that you really feel for them as you follow their story.

Penny and Sam's interactions are delightful, and I loved how they helped each other through their hard times. Well written, definitely more to it than a cute romance!

As noted in the reviewer opinions, I cannot access the book as it is a protected PDF, not a Kindle file. However, you can mail a physical copy to me at:

Zachary Houle
Apt. 805
420 Gilmour St.
Ottawa, ON, Canada
K2P 0R9

Thank you to netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm just going to start this off by saying that I DNFed this book. Now going into it I definitely didn't think that that would be the case. I saw that it was perfect for fans of To All The Boys I've Loved Before and since I read that last year and loved it I was really eager to start reading this one.

The characters to me fell flat and I wasn't able to connect to them at all. I really didn't like the writing style and I often found myself cringing at what the characters said or thought. I also found that there was a lot of slang that just kind of stuck out like a sore thumb and I didn't really find that it was necessary. It just felt like the author put it there to make the writing more relatable to a younger audience, which honestly didn't work since I'm a teen and I had to look up what half of it meant.

Overall, definitely not one of my favourites.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

I love this new wave of YA books set in college, mostly because I'm currently in university.

Emergency Contact is about these two college students who are each other's go-to person for random or deep conversation (i.e. Emergency Contact). Penny is just starting university and is distancing herself from her trying-to-be-cool mom. Sam just found out that his love-hate ex-girlfriend is pregnant. Penny and Sam meet when Sam has a panic attack and they both realize that they need a friend they can tell anything to.

I think my favourite character in the book was Sam. He felt very genuine to me and his life was interesting: he likes to bake, he wants to make documentaries, and he is dealing with feeling like he loved his ex more than she loved him. Penny, while her life story was unique, I didn't really like her. Penny's studying writing in university and had to break up with her younger boyfriend so some of that was kind of interesting but Penny does come off sometimes a bit cold. You sort of find out why she's so closed off later in the book but as a person who is really close with her mom, it was hard to relate to and like Penny.

Overall, I liked the concept of this book and felt like the characters really fit with the story. The story felt so current as well. There are discussions of rape, alcohol addiction, young adult pregnancy, cell phones, etc.

I would highly recommend Emergency Contact if you're looking for a different YA book set in college.

Goodreads Synopsis:
For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind.

Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him.

When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

My Review:
I received a copy of Emergency Contact from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love the cover for this book. It's really what drew me to it in the first place, and after reading the description I knew I wanted to read it. It starts off with a girl named Madison asking one of the main viewpoints, Penny, why her mom's a slut. Even though she isn't, she just likes to wear crop tops. That's high school for you, right? Obviously this shocks Penny, and she scrambles to figure out the best possible way to deal with this. She tends to make lists in her head, which is super relatable for me, and although I wasn't too sure about it in the beginning, I actually really like the way that two characters text each other in their separate chapters. This book is exactly what I needed to read, even if I didn't know that coming into it.

The story switches viewpoints from Penny to Sam by chapter. Usually I don't like viewpoint changes, but it's refreshing and helps the story progress in this case. The characters are lifelike, and have problems like you or I would. Penny is dating a boy she doesn't like and heading off to college. Sam is a baker and he's still hung up on his ex. They meet and something happens, and they deal with life. That's what Emergency Contact is about. I love the characters, and just the way the story is written, It's just an enjoyable smooth read and I'm glad I got the chance to check it out. This is a wholesome book and honestly it's probably one of my favourites. You should definitely give it a chance if you haven't already.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon, and another link to the authors Twitter.

https://www.amazon.ca/Emergency-Contact-Mary-H-Choi/dp/1534408967/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515796674&sr=8-1&keywords=emergency+contact

https://twitter.com/choitotheworld

Thanks for reading! Check out this review and more at my blog.
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

Finished this book hours ago and I'm still thinking about it. The best part of Emergency Contact was the characters (major and minor) and their distinctive, well-rounded voices. Penny and Sam were so relatable, endearing and flawed and you just can't help but to root for them. It was the perfect, millennial-esque love story, but I also loved the focus on friendship - both between Sam and Penny, but also Sam and Penny and the supporting characters.
I found the pacing at the start to be a little bit slow and the ending felt slightly rushed. Nonetheless, I will definitely be recommending this to contemporary loving friends. A confident, engaging debut.

This book gave me ALL. THE. FEELS. I loved it right from the swoon-worthy cover to the forgivably cheesy final scene. What I loved most about Penny and Sam is that they're so perfectly millennials, just trying to figure out who they are and what they want. And, plus, the fact that most of their relationship takes place over text message.

I'd recommend this new adult read to anyone who savours a slow burn kind of quiet love story.