A review by skinnygetout
Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi
5.0
I didn't think that I would like this book as much as I did. Sometimes, a book comes into your life and you have no expectations, and then it bowls you over with its exquisite humanness that you can't help but read it breathlessly and think about it when your not reading it. This was one of those for me.
I read Emergency Contact and liked it well enough, but this was excellent. I read a review on NPR.com that their is a blank space between YA literature and Adult literature. I agree. The reviewer went on to say that Choi is filling that space with her novels. I agree.
In this novel, Pablo Neruda Rind navigates that empty space between high school and adulthood just like a college dropout without any prospects for the future should. He's over emotional, depressed, clever as fuck, and ridiculously opinionated without the life experience to merit the opinions. She nails being 20 perfectly.
I love how Pablo's love affair with Leanna Smart, former Disney star turned mega popstar, is so unfathomable that it works. It's obvious from the very beginning that it will never work out like either of them want, but the electric sweetness between the two is palpable and I found myself rooting for the impossible. When the fallout happens, Pablo is wrecked, his life is a wasteland of burned bridges and severed lifelines. All seems pretty bleak.
What I love most about this book is that Pablo's recovery happens in steps, in the small daily occurrences that offer redemption. Life is like that. When you open yourself to it, life offers you choices, stepping stones, to something better and brighter, you just have to follow them and be brave enough to trust your footing on the invisible bridge.
Thanks Mary H.K. Choi, I needed this.
I read Emergency Contact and liked it well enough, but this was excellent. I read a review on NPR.com that their is a blank space between YA literature and Adult literature. I agree. The reviewer went on to say that Choi is filling that space with her novels. I agree.
In this novel, Pablo Neruda Rind navigates that empty space between high school and adulthood just like a college dropout without any prospects for the future should. He's over emotional, depressed, clever as fuck, and ridiculously opinionated without the life experience to merit the opinions. She nails being 20 perfectly.
I love how Pablo's love affair with Leanna Smart, former Disney star turned mega popstar, is so unfathomable that it works. It's obvious from the very beginning that it will never work out like either of them want, but the electric sweetness between the two is palpable and I found myself rooting for the impossible. When the fallout happens, Pablo is wrecked, his life is a wasteland of burned bridges and severed lifelines. All seems pretty bleak.
What I love most about this book is that Pablo's recovery happens in steps, in the small daily occurrences that offer redemption. Life is like that. When you open yourself to it, life offers you choices, stepping stones, to something better and brighter, you just have to follow them and be brave enough to trust your footing on the invisible bridge.
Thanks Mary H.K. Choi, I needed this.