Emergency Contact

I wish I could go back in time and give this book to my teenage self. It perfectly captures the wild joy and pain of crushes. It all hits home, Penny's relationship with her mom, the joy of seeing a new text appear on your phone, the anxiety of starting college. I want to give this book to the teens in my life so they can feel that comfort and love too.

All of the reviews below will summarize the story well. Funny and warped, the voices of Penny and Sam are raw, honest, innocent and wise all at once. I'm an avid YA reader, and I'll just leave it at this: Best book I've read so far this year.

This book was so fantastic. I felt like the author was seeing into my soul/might have actually hacked my phone? (Seriously, did she hack my phone?) It felt so intimate to me and exactly like a relationship I had, and the particulars of awkwardness and the texts were too close to home. I loved this book, I'm going to read it at least two more times!

If you're familiar with Choi's writing then you know it's got a very specific and strong flavor. Like a beef jerky you're willing to drive 200 miles through rural Texas to get because they do something with jalapenos and cranberries that no one else even thinks of doing. This book is like if they did that with Kobe beef, from a cow that they shiatsu massaged and read Goodnight Moon to every night, whose meat was dehydrated by Ron Popeil himself.

It's an amazing story told by an amazing storyteller with a unique, relevant, and essential voice.

I have been a total stan for Mary's writing through her entire career. She has so much voice and energy and detail and amazeballness all rolled into one. It's a great story with great characters and I can't wait to read it again. And if you don't buy this book for the lovely story, get it for the BEAUTIFUL cover.

I put a lot of books on my to read list and when this one hit the top of the list, I didn't know anything about it. I started reading not knowing what to expect. At first I thought it was going to be another light, cute girl finds love and friendship YA. And not gonna lie, that us what this is. But the characters feel real and I cared about them. The story ends with loose threads and unknowns, but that feels right too. Emergency Control was well written, a quick and enjoyable read and I will recommend it to others.

Emergency Contact gives you all the great squirrely feeling of falling in love, like "Amelie" if Amy Heckerling made it and the 1990s were the 2010s.
So basically, if you had a cell phone with unlimited data and just met your favorite person on earth but happily coasted in a holding pattern for your paths to align.

I loved this book. Mary H.K. Choi truly has a finger on the pulse of the world we're in right now. Great voice, great characters. Don't let the YA category fool you. It is SO GOOD at speaking to the younger me that's lurking inside, curled up, hopeful, hesitant, scrutinized, and scrutinizing. I can't wait to see what Ms. Choi does next.

Introverted, creative and so ready to get away from her mom, Penny isn't really looking for love or friendship, but she finds both during her freshman year at UT Austin. On the heels of an epic breakup, barista Sam is struggling to make it through each day financially and emotionally. When Penny and Sam's lives intersect on a horrifically hot day, they become emergency contacts...and maybe more? I loved the setting, humor, wisdom and overall vibe of Emergency Contact. I think it will find fans amongst Rainbow Rowell's readers.

I lovedddd this book! Such a sweet and tender love story that expresses the importance of friendship and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. A story that makes you count your blessings for the good people in your life and makes you ponder who your emergency contacts are?

The book itself is an easy read and I enjoyed the story overall but {{SPOILER ALERT}} I was not a fan of the use of sexual assault as a turning point for a character. While I understand it's common and something that needs to continue to have attention, it just didn't feel necessary.

Such a great story from such a smart, funny, unassuming writer. Relatable for anyone trying to navigate this complicated world we live in.

A must read! ???? ❤️❤️❤️❤️.

I like that this book knows who its audience is and caters to that. It doesn't try and be anything other than what it is. It's very real. Also, Ms Choi is super funny! I wish I could be best friends with her if this is how her brain works. Very cute, fun, story that still had meaning and creativity woven through. Great job!

As an Asian-American college girl, I found everything to be really relatable and relevant to my life. I enjoyed the intellectual complexity of the characters and how they complemented each other. The ending left me wanting more in the best way, as young adult novels tend to do. Mary outside of her book is really cool and interesting, and that shines through the voices of her characters. Also, lowkey hate it bc I cant have a Sam irl but I will live vicariously throughout Penny.

I got this book on the recommendation of an author I follow on Instagram. I put off reading it for awhile, but once I started, I couldn’t put it down. I love a love story, and Thai was a great one. When I finished, I was so disappointed that the author didn’t have other novels for me to read!

This book made me giddy. I’ve been waiting for another book by Ms. Choi. I gobbled it up in a day. The characters are complicated and real but also likeable. It’s funny, sad, I cried a little, and stayed up too late to read it.

I adored this book. I bought it because I saw Rainbow Rowell recommend it on twitter, and if you're a fan of hers, you'll love this. The characters are so real, and you root for them from the beginning, and Mary Choi's voice is so funny and authentic. I couldn't put it down, and I wish it would have gone on forever!

I saw down to read this book and didn’t set it down until the very last page! The plot is so character driven by two perfectly flawed individuals. Emergency Contact is Mary H.K. Choi’s first novel, and she has come onto the YA scene with a bang. Please please PLEASE keep writing!!!

i am not a fiction person, i always thought. but suddenly i've found myself reading this beauty for the second time. love the characters. mary is phenomenal. she makes me feel things. i also love the book title. GET THIS BOOK. and someone get netflix etc on the phone ASAP.

So much depth and representation. I could relate to both Sam and Penny, and being an awkward teenage girl who resents her mom for similar reasons! The characters were amazingly developed! YA at its finest! 10/10 would recommend!

I was kind of hesitant to pick up Emergency Contact. Every single time I read a synopsis that reads "they're in college", I sort of fear that it will be New Adult. And New Adult is so not for me. The only NA book I read was incredibly melodramatic and had an incredibly abusive relationship at its forefront, so nope, not for me. I'm happy to say that Emergency Contact did not really read like NA. While I didn't love it, I did like it.

The Good: I really liked Penny. Sure, she was bitter, cynical, and at times, incredibly unlikable, but I thought that her flaws made her seem real, in a way. I also really loved the dynamics between Penny and Celeste because I'm a sucker for familial angst. I also really liked Jude and her friendship with Penny. Oh, and Emergency Contact is an incredibly easy read, so that's a point in its favor as well.

The Eh: I didn't really like Sam and was never really engaged with his chapters. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. I hated how he would try to one up Penny in terms of who had the worst life. If Penny mentioned something bad had happened to her, Sam was quick to point out how something worse happened to him as well and it seemed as though he was trying to invalidate what Penny was feeling. So, wasn't a big fan of him and because of this, wasn't a big fan of the romance.

More Eh: This book doesn't really have a plot. And sometimes I really like that. But for me to really like it, the characters have to be so incredibly interesting that a plot isn't really needed. These were not those characters. I think having a smidgen of a plot might've helped Emergency Contact go from okay/good to great.

In the end, I liked Emergency Contact, but I just don't think it was all that memorable. This book was a page-turner, which is shocking considering how very little happens in it. Still, I recommend it as it was interesting and had some good stuff in it.