like you either have a blue check or you do not.
>> Right.
>> And then you're like my gosh, I'm in crippling student loan debt.
I have like kind of a dead end job despite the fact that he
gets to work with Koreans which as we know is a huge privilege universally.
So- >> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] zero biases.
[MUSIC]
>> Hey, guys, it's Karah Preiss from Belletrist.
>> And it's Ebony LaDelle from Epic Reads, and welcome to another episode of
Why Not YA, where we interview some of our top favorite YA powerhouse authors.
>> We are here with Mary H.K. Choi.
>> Yay!
>> [LAUGH] Who is the author of the New York Times bestselling Emergency Contact.
>> It's true.
>> And you have a new book that we're gonna discuss, Permanent Record.
>> Yay!
>> Our Book of The Month edition, which I'm so excited for.
>> And this is the regular edition with the, what do you call this kind of cover?
>> What do you mean?
Other than magical and like- >> [LAUGH] No,
it has gorgeous clear plastic on it.
>> Right, yeah, so there is like a gloss overlay.
Basically it's just like extra pretty.
>> It's beautiful.
>> I'm into it.
>> I think that's the technical term.
>> So this is your new book.
>> It is my new book, yeah.
>> You had a lot of awesome success with Emergency Contact, and
this is equally as incredible.
>> So for those of you who don't know, Permanent Record follows Pablo.
He's a recent NYU dropout who works at a bodega.
He's like trying to figure out life, randomly while he's there,
he's working the graveyard shift and
in walks Leanna Smart which is sort of the Zendaya or Ariana Grande.
>> Yes, it's like a melange of a lot of different people.
>> Yeah, and so a romance sort of forms from it,
which is such a cute romance, I love it.
>> Thank you.
>> It's very good romance.
One of the main themes in the book is financial privilege.
If you can talk about sort of financial privilege as it pertains to the book and-
>> Sure, I mean, that's the thing.
It's like it is a contemporary romance, but I think it would be like
really disingenuous to talk about like a regular ass New York dude.
>> [LAUGH] >> Who falls in love with this like
enormous like pop juggernaut slash celebrity industrial complex unto herself
without talking about class issues.
>> Yeah, right.
>> I mean like the caste system within social media is so real.
Like you either have a blue check or you do not.
>> Right.
>> And if you are courting someone with whom in the first place like,
he has to sign an NDA.
So it's like no one knows they're dating except for him.
It almost feels like a mirage.
That is just like a really heady and intoxicating way to have love and
experience love while also just like being catapulted and
then just sort of retracted and flung back into normalcy.
So it's like it's super heady, it's all hotels, it's all like free stuff, it's all
super sexy, and then you're like, my gosh, I'm in crippling student loan debt.
I have like kind of a dead end job despite the fact that he gets to work with
Koreans, which as we know, is a huge privilege universally.
And so- >> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] Zero biases.
And so it's just like he's pinging back and forth and he gets whiplash and
it's just about all the trials and tribulations there in.
And so yeah, finances come up.
I don't know a single young person, and
I include myself as like an author person like who isn't worried about money?
And who isn't worried about the optics of money and success and ambition?
>> Yeah, and that's really interesting you say that.
Because it does make you kind of question for a lot of people who fall for
celebrities, are they really in love with a celebrity or
are they just in love with this lifestyle?
>> Right, I mean the thing is like social media, right?
The whole thing of it is it's that schism or self-delusion I guess
where you are comparing your insides to someone's outsides.
And not even just their outsides,
like they're hyper curated like the Paris filter Magic Hour outside.
>> [LAUGH] >> Valencia!
>> I feel a certain type of way, and then this person it just looks so ideal.
>> Yeah.
>> Celebrity feels like a really, really famous person who is highly curated.
Feels like someone you know, and then also their path,
a little bit feels like something you could have.
>> Right, that it's accessible.
>> That it's accessible and pitted against things like student loan debt,
like pitted against things, like going through the system, interning,
getting an entry-level position.
Grinding it out for like five years at like 30,000 or
23,000, for that long and then just making a living and making your way up.
And then you have these other trajectories, it's like comparing those
two is also a thing I wanted to talk about within this book.
>> I really love kind of the juxtaposition between like dreams versus reality and
financial hardships.
And so for instance, Pablo, the main character, he gets accepted into NYU but
he has to drop out because of the cost.
So what kind of inspired you the show the difficulties of college tuition,
especially for like the middle class?
>> Right, I mean the thing is he is middle class, but he's upper middle class,
his mother is a doctor, and that's really real.
And I did want to show that even if you have one parent who's extremely
successful, like doctors also have crazy student loans.
And she put herself through school and so by the time she paid off her loans and
her husbands loans and all this stuff.
It was just like a very real situation and when Pablo gets in,
he's also like holy crap, I've won the lottery.
I've been chosen amongst rarefied people like Donald Glover went to there.
>> [LAUGH] >> All the stuff, the mythology, and
he's so happy and he tells her and she's just crestfallen.
Because it sort of pings back and forth this like ricochet of like, I'm so
proud of you.
But like I failed you as a parent because I don't know how you're going to get
to go to school.
And so don't go chasing waterfalls sometimes.
No, I'm kidding.
>> [LAUGH] >> So that too,
I really wanted to explore and there's a lot of shame in that.
And like the two of them, Pablo and his mother, all the things that go unsaid
between the two of them as it relates to this where the story Pablo's was telling
himself is that they're indifferent to his success and that they don't support him.
And the story that she is telling herself is I failed, I failed, I failed.
And both of them are like, I can't even look at you, you know what I mean?
>> She had enough, she had a cushion for him.
She had some money for him, but she's sort of like, it's not enough.
>> She's like I have 1.3 years of NYU.
>> Sorry >> No, not at all
>> Which I was going to say,
which my mom used to say this thing growing up which was like levels of
the game, where- >> Damn your mom says hardcore.
[LAUGH] >> [LAUGH]
>> She basically was like,
look you can be rich in certain places and not rich in other scenarios,
because even if you have money.
Even if you have a job that pays you well within a system.
The amount of money that you actually have to do the things that some people
are doing is not is not there, and so you you feel like am I privileged?
And it brings up this thing of privilege, right?
Like what is privilege when you have the Jeff Bezos of the world
>> [LAUGH]
>> [LAUGH] But
people this sort of founders wealth that we've gotten very used to
>> Well right, I mean so
you take the Maslow's hierarchy of need, right?
And on the base level is just shelter, food, things this, and then at the top,
it's actualization or whatever.
But again, we're inundated with these images.
And I talk about this a lot, it's actually funny how often
I quote tweets as the basis of all my understanding.
But it's like this comedian, Jaboukie, tweeted like youth culture is if you have
not succeeded by 25, someone comes to your house to kill you.
>> [LAUGH] >> That pressure!
Even the mysticism and romanticism of being a creative.
It's just crazy and so we're inundated with these images and so
your just kind of like okay, well my bills are paid until the end of the month.
I'm in school, I'm doing okay.
I like my job, it might not be that crazy paid, but if I am not holding
a little brick of cash pretending it's a telephone on my Instagram, am I okay?
And of course, when you say it out loud it feels preposterous,
but there is just this weird little feeling tendril of
just ambient unease that depending on where you're at.
Depending on what your anxiety level is that just can sometimes
really flower in insidious ways.
>> Yeah.
>> This is about that.
[LAUGH] >> So yeah, well thank you so much.
I mean, I think we learned so
much just about the privilege of money versus the strain.
It's just a lot of good topics in the book.
>> Thanks.
>> So we think you'll enjoy.
>> And it makes you think about financial privilege and
finances in a way that doesn't make you wanna die.
>> [LAUGH] >> No,
I'm serious, I mean I think the reason why financial literacy for
young people is a bit harder to teach is because it's also mind boggling.
>> Yeah.
>> But it's also so shameful.
>> Yeah.
>> It's so shameful.
>> And so just talking about it and really kind of legitimizing those feelings and
just being like everybody's in debt.
>> Everybody is going through it, yeah.
>> It's just I think a really important part of it.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks, Mary.
>> So if you haven't bought Permanent Record yet,
I don't know what you're doing.
>> [LAUGH] >> Go buy it.
>> Make sure to like our videos, make sure to comment, tell us what you think.
Make sure to follow us at >> @belletrist, B-E-L-L-E-T-R-I-S-T.
>> And @EpicReads.
>> Stay tuned for the next episode where we're gonna talk to Mary more about her
book, Permanent Record.
[MUSIC]