“It wasn’t the first time I’d hoped for psychic transformation and ended with diarrhea…”
~ YZ Chin, Edge Case
After another taxing day as the sole female employee at her New York City tech startup, where she works on joke-telling robots. Edwina comes home to find that her husband, Marlin, has packed a suitcase and left. The only question now is why. Did he give up on their increasingly hopeless quest to secure their green cards and decide to return to Malaysia? Was it the death of his father that sent him into a tailspin? Or has his strange, sudden change in personality finally made Marlin and Edwina strangers to each other? For the next eighteen days, Edwina searches for her husband and when she tracks him down, he refuses to even look at her. Now she must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice to stay in her marriage… and in America.
I like to read a variety of genres from a variety of voices. This contemporary novel was disappointing. The writing was whimsical and darkly humorous, and the odd storyline did not scare me off, but the plot was clumsy and all over the place, here and there, without a semblance of organization. The characters were unengaging, and I was glad to make it to the anticlimactic ending. I wish I could get back the hours I spent reading it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy of the book. 3 stars.
Published Date: August 2021
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Read-alikes: Afterlife by Julia Alvarez, Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han