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Mary hk choi age3/2/2024 ![]() Pablo Neruda Rind doesn't know what he's doing with his life: He has steadily mounting debt, a complicated relationship with his divorced parents, couldn't make it through NYU, and the brightest spot of his life is a snack-themed Instagram account he runs anonymously. That's something that, existentially, I really wanted to talk about." So, if you're not latching correctly, you're just in there panicking, like, by existing with an uncertainty, you're squandering something." Choi finished, "That's certainly what Pablo is experiencing. It's been sold to you as this fecund terrain where you're able to optimize all the opportunities that are available to you and harness this very specific power, because college is supposed to be this portal to your future. "But the reason why these two books have been about life after high school is that there is this expectation that you're supposed to have something figured out. "We talk about Saturn returning as this big thing," Choi told me. And it's about accepting that your life might never look like you thought it would, and that it's okay if you need some time to figure things out. It's about realizing that nobody is thinking about you as critically as you're thinking about yourself. ![]() It's about figuring out who you are on the inside when you spend most of your time making sure your outside appearance looks okay to everyone else. It's a coming-of-age story for all of us who can't believe we're supposed to know what to do with our lives once we hit 18. Permanent Record doesn't just hum, it thumps like a heart, and maybe that's because it is a book about love: romantic, familial, and, ultimately, self-love. People would be forgiven, because, with each of her novels-and then too with her many viral articles and her perfect mini-podcast-Choi creates such recognizable, fully realized worlds that you can practically feel her words pulsing everything feels so humming, so alive. There were times when I was sitting down to write, I was like, I don't know how to do this."Īnd yet, people would be forgiven for thinking that this isn't the case, and that writing comes as naturally to Choi as pairing bodega-bought snack foods does to Pablo and Lee, the main characters in Permanent Record-that is, very. There's nothing in my second book that makes me feel like I've done any of this before. "I'm not some Swedish pop song maker where I'm like, There's the hook and this is the build and this is the bridge," Choi said. Choi told me when we met to discuss Permanent Record, her second novel, which follows last year's New York Times bestseller Emergency Contact. It’s great."I don't have the kind of muscle memory where I'm like, Yes, I wrote a hit," Mary H.K. TL DR feel free to judge Yolk by it’s very gorgeous cover. She captures the city and the many types of people who thrive (and fail) here in unflinching prose. I’ve thought this before while reading Choi’s other books, but her observations about the world, about people, about New York, are god-tier - simple, cutting, fascinating. My heart broke over and over as June and Jayne struggled to figure their sh*t out, and I never stopped rooting for either of them. Their razor-sharp banter has that perfect “do they hate each other, or are they joking?” quality that anyone who has a somewhat antagonistic bond with their own sibling will instantly recognize. The relationship between flighty, unmotivated main character Jayne and her Type A older sister June just might give you Fleabag flashbacks. Oh, and to top it all off, her older sister June - wealthy, put-together, finance extraordinaire - lives in NYC, too, though they barely speak. It follows Jayne Baek, who’s barely getting by as she attempts to balance the stress of living in New York City with 1.) making it through fashion school, 2.) mustering the courage to cut off a deadbeat, f*ck-boy boyfriend, for good, 3.) friends who are more like frenemies, and 4.) an ED that she’s vainly trying to ignore exists. Yolk has much darker themes than Choi’s previous YA novels, Emergency Contact and Permanent Record, tackling eating disorders, depression/anxiety, cancer, a suffocating need for validation, and the love-hate-love bond that only exists between siblings. And chaotic! And messy! And.ok I’ll stop with all the adjectives, now. One of the biggest reasons I love her books is, similar to Angie Thomas, she’s able to make her characters feel so genuine and real and lived in and complex. □Breaking news□- Mary HK Choi has done it again. Sometimes the best thing you can do is talk about it.”
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