[Review] Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi

Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi

Rating: 4.5 stars

To be released: September 3rd 2019

Goodreads Synopsis:

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…

Mary H. K. Choi does it again with Permanent Record! I absolutely adored her debut, Emergency Contact, because relatable college situation/anxiety is relatable, but there are honestly very few YA authors that present contemporary in the college setting. Plus this takes place in NYC and speaks so strongly to the quintessential New Yorker experience.

Pablo is an NYC dropout who works at a bodega (read 'health food store') during the night shift in Brooklyn, trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Leanna Smart, nicknamed Lee, a famous social media personality, comes into his store at 5 AM one winter evening, and the two hit it off immediately, starting a secretive, fast-paced romance that's doomed to failure.


Normally, I'm against any form of insta-romance, but Choi has a point with this one. They're young, college-aged adults, and super prone to making impulse decisions and mistakes for a variety of reasons! I feel like I'm speaking on this from an old woman perspective, except I'm around the same age as these characters. But I GET IT completely. Choi paints their romance against this background of fast-paced New York with social media dominating every aspect of their lives. It's meant to be artificial, meant to be spur-of-the-moment. There are many contemporary relationships that are that way, and even though Lee is a celebrity, having this relationship with Pab makes her even more grounded in normality. She wants to live a normal life that she gave up years ago. Both of them are trying to escape something.

For Pab, that's the fear of having to finally confront the problems he's been avoiding for months (college, not paying credit card bills, impending adulthood, etc). His relationship with Lee may seem like the fixation of this story, but more than half-way through, we get to the heart of Permanent Record that's been hinted to all along.

Here's what I want to know about school. Everyone assumes kids are bad at decisions, right? So why would anyone let an eight-year-old pick what they want to do in college. Because if you actually think about it, if you're a red-blooded American teen, the financial risk is devastating. - p. 64

So the way this relationship plays out is perfectly realistic to me. It makes sense for things to have gone the way they did, without spoiling any further.

That being said, Choi captured that New York state of mind to a T. We're all out for ourselves, trying to stand out and make a name in this so-called Big Apple that we can forget the people that surround us. Pablo starts off being selfish and self-absorbed during the stage of puppy love with Lee, but reality hits him hard soon enough. Pab is an example of someone who would say a lot, but not actually be able to follow through with it. His personality shines through in his narratives. He's anxious and depressed. He's going through that first-gen immigrant child struggle. Again, relatable.

Thinking about what's happening in the inside of your head while you're thinking about the inside of your head is exactly what I don't need to think about when I'm by myself. Man, I hate having me for company. - p. 22

I'm glad that Lee doesn't serve as a manic pixie dream girl to Pab, because she's trying to figure out her own issues (so that time apart in the second half is much deserved growth for the both of them!). Their banter is fun. They click. It's cute.

Onto the New York setting - yes! It was perfect. Brooklyn was mapped out so thoroughly in this book - from that Whole Foods in Gowanus to Atlantic Barclays. Ugh. It gives me such strong vibes of home. Especially with all the slang. Some of it was a touch out of place to me (who says herb anymore?) but this was hilarious.

"Oh shit. Deadass deadass?"
"Yes. Deadass deadass." - a real NYC conversation - p. 279

So to me, this book was fantastic. A real great read for New Yorkers and  20-somethings. My one thought is that I related so thoroughly to this book because it spoke to my experience growing up in New York and being 20-something, but I wonder if other people would get the same interpretation of this book as I did? Or something similar? The false promises of artificiality in the social media age might not shine through for everyone, though it certainly did for me.

Another hit from Mary H. K. Choi!