#mary h.k choi

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Jayne Baek is barely getting by. She shuffles through fashion school, saddled with a deadbeat boyfriend, clout-chasing friends, and a wretched eating disorder that she’s not fully ready to confront. But that’s New York City, right? At least she isn’t in Texas anymore, and is finally living in a city that feels right for her. On the other hand, her sister June is dazzlingly rich with a high-flying finance job and a massive apartment. Unlike Jayne, June has never struggled a day in her life. Until she’s diagnosed with uterine cancer. Suddenly, these estranged sisters who have nothing in common are living together. Because sisterly obligations are kind of important when one of you is dying.

[rainswhenyourehere]

[depressedonwednesday]

we don’t talk about this line enough

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Permanent Record | Author: Mary H.K. Choi | Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2019)

[masontarro]

lmaooo

[wellofcoursenot]

“Some days, I can’t forgive myself for not trying. And that is okay too because this is how I will have loved him.”

[thebookishcrypt]

Batch Ratings for 2019: Contemporary/Romance Edition

This is a list of contemporary books that I read in 2019. I didn’t really write full reviews for them but I still wanted to share my ratings! My full reading list can be found on my [Goodreads] so you can look further into them! Review from Goodreads: “I. FREAKING. LOVED. THIS. SO. HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I WANT MORE!!!!!Oh my god how am I going to sleep now. I am way too awake from all the…

[biglisbonnews]

Lucy Liu Is the Least-Bothered Person You Know “I’m sure there are tons of people who don’t like my work or my career or me. I’m not here to change somebody’s mind.” https://www.thecut.com/2023/03/march-2023-cut-cover-lucy-liu.html

[doomed-prophetess]

Louise Glück, Descending Figure / Mary H.K. Choi, Yolk / George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones / William Wordsworth / Barbara Alpert / Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

[librarycards]

Do you know of any good "sad girl books"? Good being the emphasis here lol.

you got it! i'm really picky and hate a lot of them, just a warning, but here are some sad girl/sad girl-adj books you might be interested in, which may also stretch your conception of, like, the Sad Girl in lit:

Yasmin Zaher, The Coin

Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

Melissa Broder, Death Valley

Zania Arafat, You Exist Too Much

Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

Ruth Madivesky, All-Night Pharmacy

Katie Kitamura, Intimacies

Mary H.K. Choi, Yolk

Samantha Hunt, The Seas

Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

[poppletonink]

Fearless TV: An Inspired Reading Recommendations List

Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle (Fearless)

Ellie Pillai Is Brown by Christine Pillainayagam (Fifteen)

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (Love Story)

Better Than The Movies by Lynn Painter (Hey Stephen)

An Abundance Of Katherines by John Green (White Horse)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (You Belong With Me)

It's Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han (Breathe)

Today, Tonight, Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon (Tell Me Why)

We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han (You're Not Sorry)

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han (The Way I Loved You)

All This Time by Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott (Forever & Always)

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (The Best Day)

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Change)

Heartstopper Vol. 1 by Alice Oseman (Jump Then Fall)

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Untouchable)

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (Come In With The Rain)

Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi (Superstar)

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell (The Other Side Of The Door)

Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han (Today Was A Fairytale)

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston (You All Over Me)

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen (Mr. Perfectly Fine)

Dear Heartbreak by Heather Demetrios (We Were Happy)

Any Way The Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell (That's When)

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (Don't You)

Ellie Pillai Is (Almost) In Love by Christine Pillainayagam (Bye Bye Baby)

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 We shouldn't wait until May every year to delve into the beauty of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voices. In May, I shared a list of the NEWEST AAPI books out this year. To keep promoting AAPI authors, characters, and stories, here are a few Young Adult AAPI books you can add to your TBR for the remainder of the year!

🏮 The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han 🏮 My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong 🏮 Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi 🏮 When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert 🏮 To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han 🏮 I Will Find You Again by Sarah Lyu 🏮 Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi 🏮 American Panda by Gloria Chao 🏮 When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon 🏮 Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman 🏮 Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao 🏮 Rent a Boyfriend by Gloria Chao 🏮 Want by Cindy Pon 🏮 The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf 🏮 A Place to Belong by Cynthia Kadohata 🏮 Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon 🏮 Everyone Wants to Know by Kelly Loy Gilbert 🏮 A Pho Love Story by Loan Le 🏮 The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad 🏮 Prepped by Bethany Mangle 🏮 The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn 🏮 Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi 🏮 Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim by Patricia Park 🏮 This is Not a Personal Statement by Tracy Badua 🏮 The Cartographers by Amy Zhang 🏮 The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim 🏮 This Place is Still Beautiful by Xixi Tian 🏮 Chasing Pacquiao by Rod Pulido 🏮 I'm Not Here to Make Friends by Andrew Yang 🏮 The Queens of New York by E. L. Shen 🏮 Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying 🏮 These Infinite Threads by Tahereh Mafi 🏮 Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim 🏮 The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim 🏮 A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

[girljeremystrong]

do u have a book rec that will ruin me emotionally? i want to be upset. but in a nice way. sort of like how la vita è bella makes me upset or a thousand splendid suns makes me upset. i need a bittersweet ending i will think about forever. or something. sorry for the random question shshsjsjs <3 all g if you can’t think of anything i just thought i’d ask you first

of course i do!! ❤️

so here are some book that are upsetting and heartbreaking and made me upset and made me cry:

the great believers by rebecca makkai

i cried and cried and didn't recover for days. a dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s chicago and contemporary paris.

the fortune men by nadifa mohamed

how frustrating and sad this was, made me cry and made me mad! the story of a murder, a miscarriage of justice, and a man too innocent for his times.

tin man by sarah winman

why is love so miserable? ellis and michael are twelve when they first become friends, and then one day this closest of friendships grows into something more. but then we fast forward a decade or so, to find that ellis is married to annie, and michael is nowhere in sight, what happened in the years between?

the summer that melted everything by tiffany mcdaniel

this writer is outstanding! when a local prosecutor publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of breathed, ohio, nobody quite expected that he would turn up. they especially didn't expect him to turn up a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy.

betty by tiffany mcdaniel

i cried through entire chapters of this. a stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the appalachians in which a young girl discovers stark truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life. "a girl comes of age against the knife."

swimming in the dark by tomasz jedrowski

so sad and infuriating!!! set in early 1980s poland against the violent decline of communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide

crying in h mart by michelle zauner

just hundreds of pages about a death so sad and inevitable. a memoir about growing up korean american, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

the prophets by robert jones jr.

everything about this is upsetting and maddening. a novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a deep south plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.

yolk by mary h.k. choi

to me all stories about siblings are intrinsically tragic. a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters switching places and committing insurance fraud to save one of their lives.

mayflies by andrew o'hagan

so sad but also a glorious celebration of life. a memorial to youth's euphorias and to everyday tragedy. a tender goodbye to an old union, it discovers the joy and the costs of love.

salvage the bones by jesmyn ward

an absolute masterpiece!!! hurricane katrina is threatening the coastal town of bois sauvage. esch and her three brothers are stocking food. she's fourteen and pregnant. as the twelve days that comprise the novel's framework yield to the final day, the unforgettable family pulls itself up to struggle for another day.

tell the wolves i'm home by carol rifka brunt

sad and sweet and also nothing is more heartbreaking than how people with aids were treated in the 80s. a moving story of love, grief, and renewal as two lonely people become the unlikeliest of friends and find that sometimes you don't know you've lost someone until you've found them. in 1987 after her uncle dies of hiv a fourteen year old girl gets to know his uncle's partner.

an american marriage by tayari jones

this woman is an incredible writer! this book is so absolutely frustrating. newlyweds celestial and roy are the embodiment of both the american dream and the new south. but as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart. roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime celestial knows he didn’t commit.

flowers for algernon by daniel keyes

heart-wrenching!!!! it's the story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse.

and among the classics:

if this is a man by primo levi

the account of the author's experience from when he was captured to his transfer as part of 650 italian jews from to auschwitz in poland and his experiences until the end.

all quiet on the western front by erich maria remarque

with the fire and patriotism of youth a group of german schoolboys sign up to go to war. what follows is the moving story of a young ‘unknown soldier’ experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

giovanni's room by james baldwin

an american expatriate living in the south of france, reminisces about his life, while his ex-lover, an Italian immigrant named giovanni, is set to be executed in the morning.

if beale street could talk by james baldwin

a moving story of love in the face of injustice. tishis a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child. they have pledged to get married, but tonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. their families set out to clear his name.

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Yolk | Author: Mary H.K. Choi | Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2021)

[orchidsangel]

hello ml!!

i was curious abt how big of a reader you are. like, if books ever interested you or if it’s just fics of tumblr mby?

and if books for you, what are your favourite(?)?!

hi robin!!!

oh gosh, i used to be such a massive reader. like genuinely addicted to reading, could knock out multiple books in a day. i remember one time when i was in elementary school, the book fair came around, and i asked to go to the nurses office so i could get out of class and look at the books.

i think sometime in middle school, i stopped reading as much, and by high school, i almost completely stopped outside of stuff assigned for class. and even then, i would skim over stuff and just quit a few chapters in.

i've got adhd so my attention span is really short, and my brain just won't function normally when i read, so i find myself rereading the same sentences over and over again to make sure i understand them, which just gets really frustrating. so idk, i stopped reading full-blown books bc of it. which is crazy because i do still love reading, i just hate that my brain's a little wonky and won't let me do it in peace.

a couple years back, i had to take english over in summer school, and it was basically a free reading period, so i ended up reading three entire books that summer, which may not be a lot for some people, but for me, at the time, it was really big. and last year, i finally finished a book that i had started two years prior but put down because it was just fucking insane.

i hope to read more this year, and literally, just last night, i raided my mom's classic lit shelf. planning on reading dracula or the picture of dorian gray!

as for my faves, it's hard to say because every book that's really stuck with me was something i read 2+ years ago, but the party by robyn harding was one i really loved. i read it in 8th grade, and it definitely wasn't for kids, but idk, i've never been one to stick to my age group. emergency contact by mary h.k. choi was a big one for me. i read that in 9th grade as a freshman in high school, i believe, and i followed it up with permanent record also by mary h.k. choi. i really loved both books, which was surprising for me because i'm not really into romance, but what i liked about them was how the entire plots weren't focused on the relationship, like it was more than that.

when you reach me by rebecca stead was a book i read when i was 10, and i still think about it to this day. i get the urge to reread it because my ten-year-old brain couldn't fully understand what was going on, but i did really enjoy it. during that same time in my life, i read the books absolutely normal chaos by sharon creech and a crooked kind of perfect by linda urban. both are books i think about often, especially a crooked kind of perfect, i reread it multiple times.

the most recent book i finished was credence by penelope douglas which…no comment. (literally put it down for two years before picking it up again and then had to put it back down for another six months)

my most recent fave was beware that girl by teresa toten, which i really really loved. although, the ending was a little lackluster, so i choose to ignore it and focus on the parts that i loved, which was pretty much the entire rest of the book.

i also enjoyed we were liars by e. lockhart, which was recommended by booktok before they became a bunch of smut fiends. i really did like that one, i didn't expect the end, and it was a good read to me.

there's definitely more that i've read in my life and enjoyed. i was a big geronimo and thea stilton lover when i was a kid, along with junie b jones and any iteration of a diary that could be found (dork diaries, dear dumb diary, diary of a wimpy kid). but lately, all i read is fanfiction, and i don't even read that much anymore.

i suppose the best way to exercise my brain muscles and get back into the habit of reading is to pick up a book and read, but ahhh, my eyes get so tired, and i already spend so much time staring at words while writing and doing homework. but i do really miss the feeling of being thoroughly enthralled in a book and not being able to put it down.

speaking of a book i forgot, the cheerleaders by kara thomas was a book i read the summer before my freshman year of high school, and it's the book that made me realize i thoroughly enjoy murder mysteries set in high school.

anyway, sorry this got so long. thank u for the q; made me really happy to answer it!

[jaydedbee]

“Nothing that is a manifestation of your creative energies is stupid... Doing nothing is the only stupid.” ― Mary H.K. Choi, Permanent Record

7/13/2024