“Emergency Contact” was one of the most hyped-up YA novels of the first half of 2018 and I heard lots of early raving about it. Choi’s novel debut is a Rainbow Rowell-ish college story of modern love that focuses on two college-age adults, Penny and Sam. Because contemporary isn’t my favorite genre, I wasn’t super eager about this book, but I ended up receiving an ARC and decided to give it a try and was actually pretty surprised by it. Here’s what we’ve got going on:
Penelope “Penny” Lee has just started her freshman year at University of Texas, an hour and a half away from her mother, Celeste. Penny is eager to get some space between her and her flirty, outgoing mom who Penny wishes would grow up a little. Pursuing a degree in writing, Penny is ready to prove herself in class.
Sam is living in a small room above the bakery where he works as a barista/cook/baker of extremely delicious baked goods. He has $17 in his bank account, a laptop that is about to die, and an ex-girlfriend who he just can’t quite seem to get over.
These two fairly broody, somewhat awkward characters meet through Penny’s roommate, Jude, and begin texting back and forth after they run into each other again. What follows is a funny, often rough, and very 2018-feeling story about two people who begin sharing their lives (mostly) and thoughts with one another without all the awkwardness face-to-face convos can entail. But is there something more? Or are Penny and Sam destined to simply remain each others emergency contact?
Content warnings: This book does deal with and speak in depth about some more serious topics, including alcoholism, neglectful parents, abortion, and rape.
The Characters
Upon reading Chapter 1 I almost put this book down and forgot about it. Penny in the first chapter was borderline insufferable and felt incredibly juvenile and selfish. But then I read Sam’s chapter after it and he kind of intrigued me so I kept going. Throughout the book, Penny does retain some of those selfish attitudes, but there is absolutely character development and she gets called out for being so indifferent towards others. Though Penny is fairly unlikeable at first she grew on me as the book went on and I think she truly began to find her footing in life.
Sam’s character growth is pretty different than Penny’s; he is dealing with a lot of emotional baggage from a past relationship that he just can’t seem to escape (in more ways than one). He is also trying to make his way through a college course online, attempting to work towards a film degree and get closer to his dream job.
One of my favorite things about Penny and Sam is how they both had hobbies they were passionate about and actually worked at bettering them and enjoyed the process. Penny wants to be a writer and she is shown writing, rewriting, editing, and thinking about her projects. She puts time into her talent, as does Sam. His baking is something he takes pride in and loves sharing with people; he shows a similar passion about his documentary making. This made both characters feel very fleshed-out.
The Relationships
Clearly this novel is a romance sort, with the main relationship the one between Penny and Sam, but the side relationships were honestly just as interesting to read. I totally enjoyed the development between Penny and her mom, Celeste. They started off the novel in a really rough spot and Penny clearly resented her mom quite a bit. No spoilers, but their growth and speaking throughout the novel felt truly authentic and real! I really enjoyed seeing a daughter-mother relationship that wasn’t super perfect and had some work to be done, but that wasn’t unhealthy. Sam also has some mom issues happening, and although his relationship is pretty different, again I liked seeing how he was working through it.
The relationship between Penny, Jude, and Mallory also ended up being way better than I anticipated. I really felt hesitant about this friendship at first because Penny was fairly hostile towards the other two girls, especially Mallory, because they were much more outgoing and outwardly polished than Penny was. Penny is super quick to judge people and has to deal with the consequences of that at some point. But like with Penny and her mom, these three girls have to work on building their relationship and on the whole, I really enjoyed seeing what happened.
Other
The pop culture references in “Emergency Contact” are on point: they’re funny, timely, and make the characters seem like actual people you would run into on the street. Choi has a very natural, quirky way of writing that makes the story just seem to fly by while also building up a believable world. Choi’s writing alone would make me pick up another one of her books!
Also, this book made me think about connection to other people and how relationships are built. I just recently took a college class that focuses on authentic connection and I kept analyzing the spark between Penny and Sam and thinking about how their conversations through text affected them each. It’s just a wholly interesting novel in that regard that I think will cause more readers to consider their own conversations and connections.
The Not-So-Great Bits
One of the biggest flaws of the book was the glamorization of depression. During Penny’s first meeting with Sam, there is a discussion about how people think Sam is depressed but Penny thinks he is so hot that her conclusion is that “depression suited Sam”. That was the one big moment that painted depression as something that made a person “desirable”, but since it happened so early in the book and then was never addressed, it kind of set the tone for the rest of the novel. It wouldn’t have been so bad if later someone corrected this thought, but that didn’t happen.
This paragraph has a minor spoiler in it, so skip ahead if you don’t want to see it. Sam works on his documentary throughout a good portion of the novel, but once he realizes that the school basically would have complete control of whatever he publishes and could in turn ruin Bastian and his mom’s life, Sam decides to not… finish the documentary? Submit it? You don’t really find out and that seriously bugged me. His documentary is left hanging and we as the reader get no answers about it! It felt like lazy writing to me at that point and was a tad disappointing.
Finally, there are weird little hints of girl-on-girl hate that were bordering on unnecessary. I feel like much of this is embedded in Penny’s development with the other girls in her life (her mom, Jude, and Mallory) and got better as Penny did, but it was a little off to me. For example, on page 81 (ARC edition) Penny describes her writing professor as someone who “made nerdiness glamouros. And not in some posery Tumblr way where girls played first-person shooter in their underwear to be attractive to guys.” Yeah, because of course girls can’t like video games unless they’re trying to seduce a man. -_- It wasn’t overtly prominent, but there was a small handful a little comments like this that irked me.
Final Thoughts
“Emergency Contact” is honest. No one’s life is perfect, each character has realistic struggles, and nothing comes easily, just like real life. Choi doesn’t shy away from addressing issues that different relationships have, whether between a parent and a child, a new friend and an old friend, or two people potentially falling in love. There are a few wrinkles through the novel, but there is also growth and progression, which ultimately left me hopeful for the future of the characters. I sincerely hope an “Emergency Contact 2” is in the works because I would love to see what happens next!
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Recommend for fans of: Rainbow Rowell, Morgan Matson, Colleen Hoover, Jenny Han
Thanks so much for checking out my review!
Until next time,
Deborah xx
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