Permanent Record

Author(s): Mary H. K. Choi

Young Adult Fiction

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.

Lucy Black's Review:


Mary H.K Choi is a master of tone, from the first sentence the reader understands the character's age, location and social standing. She just gets slang, she gets the particular young adult mix of shy yet opinionated and unsure but brave, the struggle of trying to make space for yourself as a teen.


As in Emergency Contact, for Permanent Record she has written a couple of multidimensional, interesting and flawed characters. Snack obsessed Pablo stumbles into an intense romance with a mega pop star, which sounds implausible but Choi makes it seem commonplace.


I'd recommend this for anyone wanting a light but introspective romance / coming of age read and those of us that love diverse New York novels. I'll be looking out for her next novel, Yolk which is about sisters and comes out in Spring.

22.00 NZD

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Product Information

General Fields

  • : 9780349003450
  • : Little, Brown Book Group Limited
  • : Atom Books
  • : 0.3
  • : May 2019
  • : ---length:- '19.8'width:- '12.6'units:- Centimeters
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Mary H. K. Choi
  • : Paperback
  • : 1911
  • : English
  • : [Fic]
  • : 432
  • : YFB