Permanent Record

by Mary H. K. Choi

A New York Times bestseller!

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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, 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, Leanna and Pablo turn to each other. Which, of course, is when things get properly complicated.

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PRAISE FOR PERMANENT RECORD

'Captivating, with quotable one-liners pinging on every page' The New York Times

'Scintillating' Financial Times

'This is the kind of book you get a crush on as you read' Wired

'This astounding follow-up to her debut, Emergency Contact, proves Choi is a spokesperson for the way we communicate (and strive, and love) now' Refinery29, Best Books of September

• ISBN10: 1432877437
• ISBN13: 9781432877439
• Publish Date: 19 August 2020 (first published 3 September 2019)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Thorndike Press
• Edition: Large type / large print edition
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

Read for free on RivetedLit.com Dec 16th. I made it to page 84.

It was free for only a day. I liked what I read, but I obviously easily stopped reading it and didn't even feel pressured to get it done on a deadline.

It couldn't capture me. I really missed having the girl LI POV. And the poor boy having a day with a pop star girl totally worked for me with Somewhere Only We Know, which got 5 Stars.

I loved a lot of what Pablo said, but not what he did. And the IDEA of his character, and his little brother, and family friends.

I have no opinion on Pop Star because I only briefly saw her for like 4 pages where she bought junk food while glammed out and freezing. And it was all in Pablo's freaking out POV.

I didn't have a hard time understanding the references and junk food in context, but I didn't KNOW know them, so they didn't help me connect.

Too bad really. I'll keep an eye out on future works because it's all there, just not for me this time.

[girlinthepages]

I apparently missed the wagon on Emergency Contact because I still haven't gotten around to reading Mary H.K.Choi's debut (oops) but I saw so many bloggers flailing about the gorgeous dust jacket for Permanent Record that I decided to request it from my library via Overdrive to see what all the fuss was about. It turns out that Mark H.K. Choi can write a great New Adult novel and I really enjoyed this slice-of-not-so-ordinary-life novel.

I am a huge fan of books that have regular protagonists who somehow end up dating celebrities/royals/etc (I just find the premise so improbable and fun) and this book has Pablo (legit named after Pablo Neruda) a college student working nights at a Bodega having a chance encounter with an Ariana Grande-tier pop star while working one night which leads to a whirlwhind turn of events in his life that's currently crumbling from a financial crisis. The story was equal parts unrealistic wish fulfillment (flying halfway across the world at a moment's notice, secretly dating someone who is regularly on billboards, etc) and painfully realistic situations (America's educational debt crisis, affordable housing crisis, etc). I think the balance of fantasy and cold reality made the story feel digestible without veering too far into one being too sad, unrealistic, ridiculous, etc.

Permanent Record is also the first book in a long time that I've read that truly felt like a "New Adult" book to me. With most of the protagonists in their early 20s and pursuing various life tracks (from college to acting to working full-time, etc) it firmly felt like it tackled the "young adult" issues and scenarios that are unique to the 20s. I CRAVE books like this!

The MCs were also both biracial and struggling to find their places in their life and steer the trajectory of their future, though in very different spheres. Pablo, the protagonist, is Pakistani and Korean and is semi-estranged from his parents who are divorced and who he developed a rift with due to his academic pursuits. There was some really well-written complicated family dynamics that were explored here, and I appreciated that Pablo's relationship with his mother wasn't one note- though they fundamentally disagreed about a LOT regarding Pablo's future, they still had a (strained) relationship that included awkward family dinners, dealing with his little brother's shenanigans, and failing to understand the other's expectations and dreams. It was painful and complicated and raw and multidimensional, rather than just a failed or non-existent relationship between parent and child for plot convenience. Pablo's father was also present and a real treat, a dreamer who Pablo often dismisses because of his age but who has ambitions and projects he aspires to despite his son's ageist thinking.

Leanna Smart, on the other hand, is more of an enigma, but through her growing connection with Pablo throughout the novel readers see that she's deeply unhappy despite her success, unsure about the content she is creating but also lacking the confidence to step out of a life that she claims to be tired of. We see glimpses of her non-celebrity self (such as when she is visiting with her Mexican grandmother) but also see how she's been molded and shaped by powerful people in the entertainment industry and is still susceptible to their manipulations. Both Leanna and Pablo are stuck in vicious cycles of self-doubt, ignorance and deep unhappiness that mirror each other's struggles though their lives are very, very different. The novel does an excellent job subtly highlighting that anxiety, panic, and other stressors can so easily be hidden behind a big personality, and manifest extremely differently from person to person, especially at such a formative age.

I don't want to delve too far into spoiler territory, but the ending was not an HEA and may not be satisfying to some. However, I do think Leanna and Pablo's relationship served to emphasize the issues in their lives and make them acknowledge their problems, which is so rarely a clean and easy process. The romance was a vehicle for a broader message and purpose that the story (at least to me) seemed to focus on.

Overall: Permanent Record is the New Adult book I didn't know I needed. Though in some ways a quiet slice-of-life story, the novel also portrayed a subtly yet deep depiction of suffering plaguing different characters from very different walks of life. Mary H.K. Choi has a brilliant and heartbreaking touch writing about characters in their early 20s and I can only hope this is indicative of more similar novels to come.

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This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages