Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi (ARC Review)

Title: Permanent Record
Author: Mary H.K. Choi
Type: Fiction
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Date published: September 03, 2019

A physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

After a year of college, Pablo is working at his local twenty-four-hour deli, selling overpriced snacks to brownstone yuppies. He’s dodging calls from the student loan office and he has no idea what his next move is.

Leanna Smart’s life so far has been nothing but success. Age eight: Disney Mouseketeer; Age fifteen: first #1 single on the US pop chart; Age seventeen, *tenth* #1 single; and now, at Age nineteen…life is a queasy blur of private planes, weird hotel rooms, and strangers asking for selfies on the street.

When Leanna and Pab randomly meet at 4:00 a.m. in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn, they both know they can’t be together forever. So, they keep things on the down-low and off Instagram for as long as they can. But it takes about three seconds before the world finds out…

⤖ My Review ⬻

For those of you who have missed my rambles about Mary H.K. Choi’s debut Emergency Contact I just thought I’d let you know that it’s my favourite YA contemporary book of all time (and you can read my full rave review here). Needless to say, I’ve been excited about Permanent Record since it was announced on Choi’s Twitter account. When the hardcover design for the book was revealed, I got even more excited because I found it to be so unique and just perfect! Emergency Contact was written in alternating between the main female and male characters’ point of view, and I found that I really enjoyed the switch because I like getting both perspectives.

So, I was surprised when I started Permanent Record and found that it’s written from Pablo’s perspective only. I felt that I didn’t really connect with, or sympathize with, Leanna due to this. And, I mean, this could have been done on purpose since she’s a superstar and is supposed to feel out of our graps somehow (in which case, this tactic was very effective). Leanna and Pablo’s banter was also probably one of my favourite aspects of this story. I also liked that a lot of Pablo’s conversation’s with his friends used language that was probably local to NYC, but found that I didn’t understand some of it because I’d never come across some of the sayings before. The story also didn’t develop in the way that I expected, although I did enjoy Pablo’s character development. So, overall, I did enjoy Permanent Record and definitely look forward to what Choi will be writing next. That being said, it did not dethrone Emergency Contact as my all time favourite YA contemporary.

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Mary H.K. Choi is a Korean-American author, editor, television and print journalist. She is the author of young adult novel Emergency Contact (2018). She is the culture correspondent on Vice News Tonight on HBO and was previously a columnist at Wired and Allure magazines as well as a freelance writer. She attended a large public high school in a suburb of San Antonio, then college at the University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in Textile and Apparel.