Hello and happy Sunday. I have a complicated relationship with Mary H.K Choi, okay? I can appreciate her writing and the fact that she writes about issues that might seem awkward or not relevant enough. I appreciate her characters, even though they aren’t really likeable, and I appreciate the fact that I am left thinking about her novels even weeks or months after I’m done reading them. This is what happened with Emergency Contact, and it’s what happened with Yolk.

I think I enjoyed Yolk more than Emergency Contact because I knew that even if there were these things I appreciated about the author, I also knew that I wasn’t going to click with the story or the characters. I don’t know how else to explain this, but that’s how I feel. Reading her books is like hanging out with someone and having an okay time, or even a good time, while knowing you’ll never hang out with this person again.

That being said, Yolk explores both the life of a woman in her early/mid-twenties and her complicated relationship with her sister who has cancer and needs surgery. It’s a tough read, an uncomfortable one, but I’m glad I got to consume this novel via audiobook. I think either format would be equally as powerful, and I think you should give it a try, if you feel up for it. Do check content and trigger warnings, though.