Emergency Contact: 6 reasons this is one of the best young adult releases of 2018

6. The book is a love letter to aspiring writers and artists

Both of the main characters in Emergency Contact are working to become artists in their respective fields. Penny takes writing classes to learn to hone her skills and create quality fiction. Sam attempts to use the resources available to him to kickstart a career in film making.

What’s great about Emergency Contact is that these passions don’t just line the background of the story. Readers get detailed explanations as to why these characters pursue these particular fields, and they also get a glimpse at the results.

Through Penny’s e-mail exchanges and text messages with Sam, we see pieces of the story she’s working on for her fiction class. Not only is the story within the story a fascinating one, but it allows us to understand Penny more intimately as a character. Writers will also relate to the barriers she faces while crafting her tale, particularly if they’ve ever workshopped their stories in a school setting.

Readers also follow Sam as he shoots his first documentary, a film he later decides to do away with for ethical reasons. He films average days in the life of a Spanish teenager, and he even uses his iPhone to capture the footage. Sam’s journey shows that artists can be ordinary people. It’s almost a direct answer to Penny’s statement that she never knew “people like her” could be writers.

Emergency Contact takes the act of making art and gives it back to the characters — and the readers.

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Will you be picking up the book?