review: emergency contact by mary h.k. choi

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. ~ Goodreads

Source: A finished copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Review:

I feel like the blurb for Emergency Contact is kind of misleading. I was expecting a cute, possibly fluffy, novel between two awkward teens and an examination of social media and love in the digital age.

While, technically, that is what the book is about – there is so much more going on.

Penny longs to leave home for college and flee her MILF mom, who flirts with all the men and dresses in over-the-top, sexy clothes, trying to be young and hip. She's more friend than mom and Penny feels like she is the parent and needs a break from the constant worry and embarrassment.

Once at college, she meets her roommate, Jude, and her bestie Mallory. It goes ok, if not great, and they head to the local coffee shop where she meets Sam, Jude’s uncle from a now dissolved marriage.

Sam is distant with Jude but that doesn’t deter Mallory from making goo-goo eyes at him and Jude makes the girls swear to a pact not date him because he’s her uncle and going through a rough patch.

Sam is barely holding it together, working and living at the small coffee shop, while pining over his ex-girlfriend, Lorraine – aka: the love of his life. One day Lorraine drops a major bomb on Sam and he’s driven to a panic attack. Penny finds him almost unconscious on the ground. She helps him through the attack and they exchange phone #’s - hence the Emergency Contact - and strike up a texting friendship where they can connect with someone without all the baggage that comes with real life relationships.

Penny:
"So yeah, no IRL for me
Why break the fourth wall?"

Sam:
"No point 
We're perfect in here"

Both Sam and Penny have a dry sense of humor and a pessimistic view of life and they connect instantly. They talk about everything from Lorraine, to their parents and their dreams of being a documentary film maker (Sam) and a writer (Penny). Their texts, and then phone calls crackle with honesty and chemistry and I wish the book focused on that more or tied it together better, rather than taking so many detours.

The story is told in alternating pov’s and Penny’s has a tendency to meander before circling back to  the point she’s trying to make. Which in all fairness, is a character trait, observed by everyone else around her, but it still makes it difficult to get a handle on the story at times.

Sam and Penny seem (& think they are) smarter than everyone around them, yet don't understand simple concepts like irony or other common knowledge things that they have to look up - then judge others for not being as smart as they are. They are both pretentious and somehow still relatable which was a weird roller coaster to ride as a reader. They could be assholes but lovable assholes :-)

There are also a lot of things going on - keeping secrets from friends, difficult parental relationships, anxiety, financial issues, past trauma (TW for  ->sexual assault), and Lorraine popping in and out of Sam’s life, Sam making a film and Penny’s writing.

It is a lot, but it never feels like a lot because it’s spread out over the course of the novel. Once the second half of the book sheds a few of these issues, the book is a delight. It was raw and emotional as it dug deep into the things that frighten Penny and Sam the most.

Penny and her mom are particularly heartbreaking and real. I also I liked seeing Sam's pov of an issue that we don't always get to see from the guys side of things. Spoiler-> Lorraine's possible pregnancy and his fears vs excitement about  becoming a dad. <- End spoiler

Both Penny and Sam are complicated people struggling with feelings of anxiety and loneliness and I loved how it was kind of messy and ugly at times but they both grew - partly because of the support from each other - but also on their own. There was a romance but it was subtle.

So, while I struggled with parts of this book I ended up really enjoying it by the end.

I recommend this for readers looking for a quirky YA that bridges the gap between HS and college with slight romance but can handle moderate levels of angst.