Emergency Contact

I just never seemed to get ahold of Penny’s character. She’s very contradictory, I like sooome of the plots and themes going on, but some felt like it goes nowhere.

3.5 my first audiobook ey. i've been so busy with uni and this was such a good book to read

i wanna scream

my 3 month online situationship was more interesting than this

Maybe only a 2.5? This book was weird for me. I didn't even really read it, I just kind of skimmed through it to the good parts with dialogue. I gotta say, I was really under whelmed by this one. I kinda LOVED Sam. I thought he was a pretty solid character. But, Penny? Not so much. Penny was a hard character to like and to understand. Granted, I didn't even fully read the book but I didn't WANT to because I couldn't really stand her personality? She was kind of a major jerk? I just don't think this book was for me.

first of all i just wanna say i really ADORE THE CHARACTERS….THE PLOT IS LIKEABLE BUT NOT MEMORABLE…

Liked it but honestly wtf

I wanted to love this. But it left me wanting more and not in a good way. I mean the story was ‘cute’ and a good read

Would totally recommend

REREAD 2/2019: yup i still love it *crying emoji* this book is so beautifully awkward and eccentric i love it

3.5. The ending was VERY disappointing. Honestly it all was

Maybe Penny was the tragic hero and Sam was her flaw. UGHHH it took forever for me to even care about this story but once I officially felt invested I FLEW through the remainder of it. Everything about the first 200 pages just screamed pretentious to me and I couldn't help but just roll my eyes everytime I picked it up. I will say that Sam is the most precious boy in the world and he was 110% the only reason I even bothered finishing oof. Anyway the last 150-200 pages definitely reedemed this book for me and I would still die for Sam

** spoiler alert ** So, i originally gave this book 5/5 stars BT i must say i read it mostly at night time and maybe too fast, so there were a few things i didn't quite grasp. I stand the same in things like the way the author links the story Penny is writing with her own growth in the book, like that was super interesting to read. And also Penny's and Sam's relationship was really sweet and healthy wich I really appreciated!! However, after watching a review on YouTube (thanks to Kat from paperbackdreams) I realised i had missed out a few problematic things like Penny slutshaming her mom or some things that are mentioned throughout the story. I totally see them now and they made me totally rethink my opinion on this book. Like, yes, it's a good story, but you can't ignore these kind of things.

I went into this book with a lot of negative expectations, and I'm very happy that I ended up reading this book despite what I expected from it. It's very rare that I find an author who is able to capture themes and ideas like trauma, toxic relationships, substance abuse/addiction, microaggressions and outright racism, dealing with peer expectations as an adult, facing overwhelming circumstances as an adult (particularly a young one) and do it so organically alongside an equally organic romance subplot. I don't think with the YA that I've read I've come across characters that are like Penny and Sam: normal people, with normal people problems, trying to figure their shit out with the limited resources that they have. I was utterly caught off guard by how human Penny and Sam were. Blown away even more when you come to realize that the amount of nuance and detail put into making Penny's personality, character choices, and character growth fit into the context of the story, you're given a young adult woman who is navigating through dealing with what's very obviously depression and PTSD in the only way she knows how: alone. Until she meets Sam and both of them through their interactions grow from self-contained introverts with issues that feel too big for them into young adults that are working toward healing and getting better. While I gravitate more toward Penny's story and POV because I can relate a lot to her, I also found Sam's struggle with literally everything in his life from his anxiety to feeling overwhelmed about his family's expectations of him, very relatable, especially being a 20-something trying to get their life together. I felt like this is what a lot of contemporary YA does when it tries to hit hard on the serious things the "young people" are going through, but it reads like it was written by someone who actually understands what it's like to be a person who's gone through an assault that they've never dealt with, or substance abuse, or the looming possibility of working a barely min. wage job and finding out you might be a parent. It's never over dramatized. The mental health issues present are never smattered over the pages in meticulously artistic prose that feels more like an attempt at depth over giving genuine human experiences. I have to commend Choi for taking Penny and Sam and giving them to us as human beings and not what I often find is the romanticized ideal that a lot of characters fall into when characters with Penny and Sam's backgrounds and struggles are given the limelight. It never felt contrived and even as the issues between characters are resolved through this book, I always felt like I could pinpoint parts in my own life where things happened similarly, and I think that's one of the many accomplishments of this book: while Penny and Sam might be fiction their lives are very much real. I very rarely find nothing to complain about over a book. I devoured this in a day and I'm still reeling.

I wasn't very into this at first: story, characters, and even Sam's narration (Penny's was good, lively in my opinion). But they grew on me enough to enjoy the story and hope for the best of these characters. I wouldn't read it again nor really recommend it (to my circle of people anyway), but I did still enjoy it.

No estoy segura de la calificación que quiero darle a este libro al final. Durante la primera mitad me sentí tan decepcionada de él, no estaba siendo lo que esperaba y tenía tantas expectativas que no estaba cumpliendo que pensé que le pondría a lo mucho 2 o 2.5 estrellas y ya. Pero, conforme fue avanzando empecé a pensar en tres, y ahora mismo al acabarlo, lo único que creo es que es un cuatro. ¿Ven el dilema aquí? Yo definitivamente sí. No sé qué decir de él tampoco. Al principio, Penny me pareció insoportable. Siempre tenía una opinión para todo y nunca era buena, era como si se creyese mejor que los demás y me molestaba mucho, especialmente con sus pensamientos e ideas estereotipadas y prejuiciosas. Sin embargo, conforme fue avanzando la historia, fui entendiendo cada vez más a su personaje y aunque no llegó a gustarme del todo, llegué a encontrar cosas en ella que me recordaban a mí, especialmente en la personalidad y el constante correr de la mente. Yo sé lo que se siente que tu cabeza nunca se calle... yo sé cómo se siente la ansiedad. Tampoco es que los personajes me parezcan entrañables al final, probablemente dentro de un tiempo ni siquiera recuerde a ninguno. Pero por lo pronto, hubo muchas cosas que lograron ponerme sentimental. Y momentos que me hicieron sonreír. Hay muchos temas delicados que no me esperaba, pero la mayoría fueron tratados muy por encima :/ Ojalá les hubiesen dado más importacia, pero probablemente el libro habría sido larguísimo. Aunque, para ser sincera, no me hubiese molestado. Creo que tengo muchas dudas. Me encantaría saber qué pasó con Sam y la escuela de cine al final, por poner un ejemplo. Este libro me hizo darme cuenta de lo mucho que necesito un Emergecy contact propio. *** Frases: You know why I know this? It’s because I know everything about you. Not only do I know everything about you, but I remember everything about you. My folder on you is so fat and complete and bursting with nonsensical shit because I couldn’t help myself. [...] I want to be with someone I can talk to. I want to be with someone who automatically has a fat folder on me. Someone who feels lucky when I tell them the most unflattering, scary stuff. I don’t think I love you anymore, and I got to be honest, I don’t believe that you love me.” *** When she kissed Sam, it was closing your eyes and opening them to find yourself in outer space. Kissing Sam was the universe. It was the Internet. It was a miracle. The part that was most astounding was that her brain switched off to pure white noise, and as she leaned in, she didn’t obsess about the mechanics of her tongue or where the rest of her body was in relation to his. *** “Nobody knows anything,” said Jude. “But you know how Penny’s from a different planet?” Sam nodded. “So if you like that one, where the hell else are you going to find another one?” *** I like knowing that you exist. It doesn’t make me feel any less lonely, because life is lonely, but it makes me feel a lot less alone.

There are some things I loved and there are some things that didn't worked for me. It is very modern with all expressions, very up to date. Only main characters are explored and that is a shame from my point of view. A boy and a girl text most of the time and that was maybe my favorite part, it was fun and flirty and very much real life. Topics like anxiety, rape, alcoholism are so well handled. On the other hand some things are much of cliche, like some supporting characters and that for me broke the spell. I had different expectations for ending but that is my fault. Overall lovely contemporary story about what is life right now.

Where to even begin ... this book was good but bad at the same time. It was a cute book, but slow. It took me forever to get through it and was almost a DNF. I pushed through and the ending was worth it, but definitely not my style of book. I tend to try to read the YA fiction in between my fantasy to give myself a break, but I need a break from this book. It was not my favorite, but not the worst I’ve read. It could have been faster pace and more exciting at times. Overall a good read.

so, i actually liked this more than i thought i would. the writing wasn’t my favorite at times and i also kind of hated penny for like half of the book but once i got about fifty pages into it, i couldn’t put it down. the way their relationship developed felt pretty realistic and natural and i couldn’t wait for them to just get together already. penny’s relationship with her mom was not my favorite, mostly because penny was unnecessarily a bitch to her ninety percent of the time, but that last scene between them was cute. i also think the book was a little longer than it should’ve been, there was definitely quite a few scenes that i didn’t feel added anything to the story. 3.5 stars

** spoiler alert ** I really tried to give this book a chance, I really did. I didn’t have high expectations, but this book was way worse than i anticipated. The writing, the characters, and the romance plot were all bad, undeveloped, and just annoying. Spoilers below 1. Penny was the worst character. I understand that her experience with SA/rape gave some insight to her personality, but I couldn’t deal with her. The author tried to make her a “not like other girls” awkward introvert, but she was hypocritical, rude, judgmental, and a bad friend. She never seemed to learn from her mistakes, she got with sam and that was it. She was so mean to her mom. I understand teenagers not having a great relationship with family, but she hated her mom for being a MILF and wearing crop tops:/ 2. The friendships didn’t make sense. Penny was so mean to Jude and the other girl (I don’t remember her name and I don’t feel like looking it up). Halfway through the book they became besties and that just didn’t make sense to me. 3. The relationship was underdeveloped. Penny and Sams relationship went from 0-100. There was no buildup, they both fell for each other after texting a bit. The interactions felt unnatural and awkward. 4. The writing made me uncomfortable. It seemed like the author was trying to emulate how teens speak, but her research on that came from tumblr in 2013. As a teenager, I have never met anyone that says “smitten mitten kittens.” The author may have been trying to make penny awkward and not talk “like other girls” but it did not come across that way. There were a few homophobic, racist and sexual comments that were just brushed over, while penny would get mad at the smallest things. It felt very inconsistent and sloppy. It seems like she may have been trying to take a satirical route, but didn’t follow through fully. Overall, I think M. K. Choy has a lot of potential as an author. I’m not sure if she has written other books, but I believe she could write a great story. Maybe get insight from more people though.

real rating: 3.5 stars

i think i’m a friends to lovers stan now

the romance was fun but i cannot get over the word choices and how "millennial" and "quirky" everything was

2.5 stars??? 3 stars??? tbh I'm not too sure