'Permanent Record' Captures The Confusing Moments Between Adolescence And Adulthood
Mary H.K. Choi has a gift for creating characters so complex and real that they jump right off the page — like the eccentrically named Pablo Neruda Rind, aimless hero of her new Permanent Record.
There's occasionally a burst of talk about "new adult" as a channel that could exist between the inland lake of young adult fiction and the wide-open ocean of books written for adults. It could be sexier and edgier than young adult but still about teens or early 20-somethings working out their feelings! It's a topic that comes and goes without gaining much traction.
Meanwhile, Mary H.K. Choi is quietly defining new-adult literature with her modern explorations of how relationships help is not especially edgy or sexy, but it does feel precisely like that confusing period between high school and adulthood where so many of us flail around, trying to figure out what we actually want from life.
