Blog Tour: Permanent Record – Review

September 9, 2019 Heidi Blog Tour, Book Review 0

Hello! It has been far too long! But I am so pleased to have a post for you for the blog tour for Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi. I’ve been struggling to finish any books lately but flew through this one. Read on for more about the book and my review.

About the Book:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Emergency Contact, which Rainbow Rowell called “smart and funny,” comes an unforgettable new romance about how social media influences relationships every day.

On paper, college dropout Pablo Rind doesn’t have a whole lot going for him. His graveyard shift at a twenty-four-hour deli in Brooklyn is a struggle. Plus, he’s up to his eyeballs in credit card debt. Never mind the state of his student loans.

Pop juggernaut Leanna Smart has enough social media followers to populate whole continents. The brand is unstoppable. She graduated from child stardom to become an international icon and her adult life is a queasy blur of private planes, step-and-repeats, aspirational hotel rooms, and strangers screaming for her just to notice them.

When Leanna and Pablo meet at 5:00 a.m. at the bodega in the dead of winter it’s absurd to think they’d be A Thing. But as they discover who they are, who they want to be, and how to defy the deafening expectations of everyone else, Lee and Pab turn to each other. Which, of course, is when things get properly complicated.

My Thoughts:

All of my friends have been raving about Emergency Contact. It came out right when I was first in my reading slump so I never picked it up. A fact that I certainly see changing after reading Permanent Record.

This book was so much more than I expected. And I had pretty high expectations! It was smart and witty and sweet. I laughed. I teared up. I grew so frustrated with the characters. I cringed in second hand embarrassment. I was so very invested and the characters were so easy for me to empathize with (even though my life is nothing like theirs.) There were just so many scenes where I wanted to highlight all of the truths the author was laying down. The main characters are in the early twenties. I am… not. And yet! I so identified with so much of what they were feeling and saying and going through and learning. Ugh. I will be thinking about this one for awhile.

If you’re looking for an incredibly well crafted and emotionally resonant story, Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi is high on my recommendation list.

About the Author:

Mary H.K. Choi is a writer for The New York Times, GQ, Wired, and The Atlantic. She has written comics for Marvel and DC, as well as a collection of essays called Oh, Never Mind. Her debut novel Emergency Contact was a New York Times bestseller. She is the host of Hey, Cool Job!, a podcast about jobs and Hey, Cool Life!, a podcast about mental health and creativity. Mary grew up in Hong Kong and Texas and now lives in New York. Follow her on Twitter @ChoitotheWorld.