There was something special and unique about "Edge Case" that I couldn't resist. Usually I don't like character-driven novels, but this one blew my expectations. It was such a fast and engaging read. I remember thinking I'm either really going to love or really hate it. It's just one of those kind of books. It's weird and quirky, and yet I couldn't stop reading it. The story is simple, Edwina's husband, Marlin leaves her, and Edwina begins to fall apart and is left to ponder what weren't wrong in their marriage. The writing was excellent. YZ Chin's prose is electric, snappy, and emotional. I loved the banter/dialogue between Edwina and her controlling mother. It was so realistic. This story also touches on immigration. Edwina and Marlin are working towards getting their green card, but as Edwina starts to unravel without Marlin, she begins to question if she really wants to stay in America or return to her home country. I'm not entirely sure why I loved this novel so much. I guess it was just the feeling it gave me. "Edge Case" was definitely a diamond in the rough.

Thank you, Netgalley and Ecco for the digital ARC.

Right away the main character wins your loyalty. Her introspective quest and tenuous personal uncertainty in relationships feeds your interest. The author maintains a spinning perspective that adapts, surprises, folds back, and takes new turns. The author's gift is developing a character within their circumstances while being nothing but fresh.

Excellent portrayal of the main character Edwina and her work and relationship challenges just part of adversity she’s coping with. You’ll root for Edwina and not want this excellent book to end.

In her debut novel, Edge Case, YZ Chin uses the familiar trope of a marriage falling apart in unexpected ways to explore big questions of love, belonging, immigration and identity.

When Edwina returns home to her New York apartment to find her husband, Marlin, has disappeared, she's left to wonder: Is he missing, or has he simply left her? Should she proceed as though nothing has changed, or stop everything to save her marriage? Will she and Marlin be able to continue their applications for green cards without each other? These questions haunt her as she recounts to an unnamed therapist she met on a dating app the story of the days surrounding Marlin's disappearance.

The uncertainty of her marriage is paralyzing for Edwina, who wanders the city in search of signs of her missing husband between long missives to this Internet stranger. This paralysis never carries through to the pages of Edge Case, however, which is perfectly paced. The domestic suspense of Edwina's relationship status ultimately reaches well beyond the walls of her small, lonely apartment: to the small, unwelcoming room of U.S. Customs and Border patrol, who once held Marlin aside when re-entering the United States; to the equally unwelcoming home of Edwina's mother in Malaysia, who insists her daughter lose more weight; to the male-dominated start-up office where Edwina works, hoping her boss will someday sponsor her green card application. The result is a riveting and poignant tale, offering sharp insights into--and criticisms of--American culture and immigration policy, neatly packed in the story of one woman's transformational journey through solitude. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Discover: A debut novelist explores questions of love, belonging, immigration and identity in this poignant tale of a failing marriage.

First, read this:
<blockquote>Being very polite to train conductors and building security guards for the past decade has made my deferential way of speaking second nature. Though what an odd saying. What is my first nature?
–and–
He stood out, his skin a shade that I had seen compared to food items like chocolate or coffee in American books. Looking at him, I thought not of food, but of a neutral coolness that disguised something else, like an envelope that contained either really good tidings or earth-shattering bad news.</blockquote>
First novelist YZ Chin isn't playing around. She wrote those two passages early in this book. There isn't, this writing informs you, going to be any false modesty in here. I am going to talk about how a Straits Chinese woman married to a Chindian man, a fat woman married to a lean, athletic man who loves her, feels when "America" does its number on them together, separately, and as Symbols. They're two damaged people, they're altogether too small to withstand the pressure of being Symbols, and they're cracking under the strains. Which is why the book is narrated by Edwina in phone-and-internet conversations with her not-quite-licensed (it's just a paperwork thing, nothing important) therapist (see INS form I-693) after Marlin leaves her.

Edwina is an abused daughter of a harridan of a mother (<I>The Banana Tree Spirit Story!</i> OMG!!), a vegetarian to her dark, lean husband's more exacting veganism, a "quality control analyst" in a dudebro startup firm called, fully explanatorily, "AInstein," that lost its VCs a boatload of money by screwing some important code up and still releasing it to a client. Oopsie. Get a girl to handle it...an immigrant who won't dare make much trouble, cause any stress but will fill the role...one who won't be missed when we have to fire her for whatever screw-up she can't make us fix.
<blockquote>The bug was what’s called an integer overflow, which is when a number is too large for its assigned storage capacity and thus can manifest instead as a negative figure. For example, if the number 128 were forced into a signed field that could express only up to 127, the input would ‘overflow’ and be displayed as ˗128. It was mildly gratifying to learn that the human body could also overflow. I idly wondered if, any day now, my pain would grow so great that it converted into happiness.</blockquote>
What a terrific job, no? Not even a company-sponsored green card application, no no, you'll get your H1-C visa and that's it. Why, if she didn't really, really, really want to stay away from the poisonous reach of her mother's awful, barbed "past-life stories." Marlin's job, less pointless it seems, even affords him a few American friends, like best buddy Eamon and the guys he goes to the rock-climbing gym with. But everything changes when Marlin's father suddenly dies back in Malaysia.

At his funeral, the pair of them expensively in attendance as the ceremonies take place, along comes Edwina's mother to tell the Banana Tree Spirit story about betrayal, misery, and hateful ignorance carrying the day. That was bad enough, being about her daughter's "past life," but the many, many echoes this latest piece of cruelty has bids fair to have broken poor Marlin. At this lowest, most grief-ridden moment, the words have twisted themselves into a noose around his logical self so the corpse is all that's left in an ever-darkening relationship to Edwina.

A little detail about the pair returning from Malaysia into Trump's Murruhkuh, how they were treated at Customs, should make your blood boil, your mouth taste sour, and your eyes reflexively leak tears. I half-wondered if Edwina's speculation that "America made Marlin feel unwelcome, and so he left me," wasn't at least half right....
<blockquote>The US government actually monitored immigrants online, and anything I typed might be used against me—that was what internet advice hinted at. Resources for immigrants cautioned that we should "avoid profanity and the use of aggressive or threatening language" while posting online, which really voided the whole purpose of being on Twitter.</blockquote>
Of course, that internet false-identity therapy makes all the sense in the world in that light, doesn't it. Especially since the internet has a random, unidentifiable Crazy Person (or two, or fifty) to tell the suffering how, exactly, not to suffer anymore:
<blockquote>Surely I was better than these people with their loud, false bravado. Yet wasn’t I on the internet precisely because I wanted someone to give me a to-do list? I objected to the content of the lists, found them laughable, but still—I wanted my hand held, didn’t I?</blockquote>
Oh Edwina...that kind of comfort is so, so cold.
<blockquote>I decided the problem was that none of the results mentioned meddling by spirits.</blockquote>
Attagirl!
<blockquote>But when I typed in "spirits told my spouse to leave me," there was a tidal wave of marriages ended by alcoholism.</blockquote>
See? See what I mean, Edwina? Cold comfort...there're people out there a lot more fucked up than you and/or Marlin.
<blockquote>What good is marriage if you can just cancel it like cable?</blockquote>
Well. Now we're gettin' somewhere, Edwina. "Grieving in the form of research, because we believed in productivity above all else," might as well be tattooed on every modern workerbee, don't you think?

Well...she wanted a way to manage her grief at Marlin's weird, sudden abandonment...what about being told you're so unvalued at work that your serious problems with the MVP beta are being ignored? Before one of the dudebros tries to kiss you at a company party? And yes, Edwina, in today's world that IS sexual assault. Her revenge? Condign. (If premature...?)

It was no wonder to me that Edwina ended up doing what she did at the Korean deli. And it was actually a lovely surprise, a way of taking charge of her unhappiness. I can't help but wonder if this isn't, in fact, something that's in fact true and just not being discussed:
<blockquote>I didn't buy that depression was caused by low serotonin levels. No, what I felt was way more aggressive than a simple deficiency of certain neurotransmitters. There had to be another neurotransmitter that carried sadness, that handed out hopelessness like drugged candy. After all, even matter had antimatter.</blockquote>
But when matter and antimatter don't find a safe place to co-exist, what do they do then?
<blockquote>I'd send nail clippers (he was fastidious that way, or at least he used to be when he lived with me), ramen noodles (the fancy, super spicy ones, not the kind that tasted like boiled water that someone had farted in), a throw, maybe even a handheld gaming console.</blockquote>
No one who can write that sentence is done with being A Wife. Edwina, my dear lady, I've spent a grand total of five hours in your company, and they were grand hours! that ramen line!, but your modern-love-immigrant-style story isn't a huge revelation to me. Not once have you startled me, or surprised me, or done anything the least bit out of character.

And do you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Edwina and Marlin

It’s an odd book. The characters are not one dimensional but their situation, insecurities, and loneliness perpetuates on every page, until I didn’t care about them anymore.

Marlin and Edwina are married, working in the United States with proper visas. They are both from Malaysia. The goal is to obtain green cards which seems to encompass almost every waking moment of many immigrants in this country.

One day Edwina returns from work and discovers Marlin has left her. In the next few days and weeks, she dissects their marriage and her personal characteristics. She is frantic and leaves him countless unanswered messages on his phone and is desperate to find him. She needs to know what she did wrong. However, poor Edwina has received enough criticism from her mother and Marlin providing her with enough clues.

he reader is inside Edwina’s head and we simultaneously live through her agonies and few hopeful moments. During this time that Marlin stays away from her (she does find him), she starts to experience better days at work. As a talented technician and the only woman at her company – the management may help her obtain a green card.

The agonies of Edwina and Marlin (the latter mostly in flashbacks) seemed endless. The writing was actually excellent, it was the repetition of the idiosyncrasies of the two main characters that I did not find curious, except for the palpable fear of immigration in this country. One of the better scenes is when they returned to the United States after visiting Malaysia, and they are questioned by immigration officials. The power of the
officers is deliberately orchestrated to make them feel small and scared.
2.5 stars

My gratitude to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with this pre-published book . All opinions expressed are my own.

Having picked up Chin's collection of stories earlier this year, I was excited to pick up another book by Chin. In my eyes, Edge Case fills in the much-needed gap in the literary world on the experience of white-collar immigrants in America. As a white-collar immigrant myself, I found solace in the pages - there were so many instances I laughed or commiserated with the main character's experiences with immigration. Surprisingly, many of the interactions of the main character with her mother reminded me of my own interactions with my family - complex, laden with trauma.

Thank you so much NetGalley and Ecco Books for the opportunity to read this book.

This story fell a bit short for me. Initially, I liked the narration format, of Edwina talking to her therapist, but it wasn't done as well as it could have been. It quickly felt like an afterthought. I liked the discussions of the immigrant experience (the couple is from Malaysia) and the complex family dynamics that encircle the characters. This was a slow story, a quiet story, which is fine, but at times it was just too slow, especially when there's a seemingly tense plot of Edwina's missing husband and her trying to find him.

This book took me by surprise. I loved the witty writing.
I read this in one sitting good type of book!

Recently I’ve taken note as I’ve been reviewing; A great many have the protagonists narrate the book. I’ve always wondered who exactly they were talking to. Especially in the case of events that are currently unfolding. Edge Case goes the route of Edwina talking to her therapist through email, which I find clever and well done.

The book is funny at times but more than anything, I find it kinda sad. It really feels like Edwina can’t catch a break. Then her husband vanishes. It offers an interesting perspective of a Malaysian immigrant in the U.S., worried about getting her green card; as well as being a female in a primarily male-dominated work environment. Growing up with weight issues, followed by an eating disorder and a disrespectful mother, I just felt bad for her as I was reading.

It bounces around between “before” and “after” times, which I found a bit confusing at first because I wasn’t paying much attention to chapter titles. I never do, to be honest. The book can feel a bit aimless at times, though that could also be chalked up to Edwina being a rambly storyteller. While I found myself interested in what happened to her husband and how things would work out, I noticed a lack of organization for how things were told.

NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.

Edwina and Marlin are two Malaysian immigrants working in the NY tech industry. The usually logical Marlin turns to communication with spirits to cope after the recent passing of his father, and he walks out on Edwina. EDGE CASE follows Edwina as she examines both herself and their relationship. Interspersed are cringeworthy episodes of lone female employee Edwina working at a company developing a comedian-robot.

EDGE CASE is darkly funny (ramen packets are “boiled water someone had farted in“) and lovely- portraying two people simultaneously dealing with different forms of grief. There’s a lot of great nerdy writing here, such as when Edwina compares grief to a coding bug:

“The bug was what’s called an integer overflow, which is when a number is too large for its assigned storage capacity and thus can manifest instead as a negative figure. For example, if the number 128 were forced into a signed field that could express only up to 127, the input would ‘overflow’ and be displayed as ˗128. It was mildly gratifying to learn that the human body could also overflow. I idly wondered if, any day now, my pain would grow so great that it converted into happiness.”

There are also moments where I felt SEEN for doing something absurd but also universal. Ex: Edwina turns to the internet for advice and does not like the results:

“Reading these posts, I felt superiority and abjection blending into a slurry. Surely I was better than these people with their loud, false bravado. Yet wasn’t I on the internet precisely because I wanted someone to give me a to-do list? I objected to the content of the lists, found them laughable, but still—I wanted my hand held, didn’t I?”

This book is worth a read. It touches on themes with broad appeal, but it’s the specificity of Edwina’s experience as an immigrant figuring out her identity that I found most compelling.

Thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for the review copy!

The first thing that came to mind after I finished this book was: WTF did I just read?! And that's not a bad thing!

Edge Case, much like its' title, is a story that is quite out there --an anomaly if you will. At its' core is a story of a woman who discovers that her husband has left her. The story toggles from "before" to "after" as Edwina, the protagonist, searches for her husband Marlin and pieces together why he left.

The first half of the book followed a normal, narrative course. Along the way, we get to learn more about Edwina and her husband Marlin and how they immigrated to the U.S. Both work in the tech industry and Edwina, as a woman in a male-dominated filed, offers a lot of introspection into sexism. We get a peek into Marlin as well --as a dark-skinned male, he faces racism in their new country. There's also some great commentary on Malaysian culture and familial duty.

Towards the second half of the novel, however, the story veers into folklore and mysticism. Sounds weird, but I think it works. The author weaves spiritual tales into the story that was so interesting to me that I wanted to know more... I want a full story about the banana spirit!

The author adds another layer by setting most of the story in Edwina's workplace --she's a developer for a company called AInstein and is testing an AI program that tells jokes. I thought the juxtaposition of technology with folklore was particularly interesting. And I don't use the word "juxtaposition" a lot... lol

While I felt for Edwina, I feel I really didn't get to know them as a couple. I was really invested at the beginning as to how this would play out, but I felt the story lost its' steam for a bit. Overall, however, I did appreciate the subtle nuances in the story and the creative story-telling. It's definitely unique and thought-provoking!

The structure of the novel reminds me a bit of Detransition, Baby --which is another unconventional novel that I enjoyed. If you like weird, unique stories, you'll definitely be intrigued by Edge Case.

A distance gapes between what Edwina wants and what Edwina thinks she wants, and it takes her husband Marlin leaving her to set her on the course to excavate the gap. Edwina (the name she's adopted in America for convenience) and Marlin are Chinese Malaysian immigrants working at different tech companies in New York hoping to earn sponsorship for their green cards. A big part of Edwina's job is to anticipate and catch edge cases, occasions where some “limit” in a code results in bugs if the edge case is not taken into account. The novel's titular edge case concerns Edwina neglecting to see the signs of Marlin's emotional unraveling. I very much enjoyed the voice and that the point of view character Edwina speaks to us readers as if we are an online therapist. From page 1 we know she's asking for help, and as the narrative progresses, the nature of the help she is seeking changes. It's a strange, meandering narrative, part missing person caper, part stream of thought exercise. I'm going to predict that YZ Chin's next book is going to blow my mind. I didn't love this book, but Chin is an author whose work I'd like to follow.

[Thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my opinion.]

Edwina is trying to get to the bottom of some unexpected relationship issues with her husband, manage a difficult relationship with her mother that is greatly focused on body/appearance, and also struggling with co-workers at a company that she needs to sponsor her visa.
While an interesting idea, I felt that the story was rather slow-moving. The first person perspective was awkward and it was at some points difficult to discern the person to whom the conversation was directed. There were moments in the story where I found myself surprised by a series of events, but this did not change my overall feeling about the book. This one just wasn't a good match for me.

This is a strong and powerful debut, effectively combining the story of one individual at a critical cross-roads of her life with compelling observations about identity, home, relationships, and work. It focuses on Edwina who returns from her job at a technology company one night to find that her husband has packed a suitcase and left. The novel then describes her efforts to locate her husband and understand his decision to leave, while reflecting on the circumstances that brought her and her husband to this point.

This is one of the more interesting takes on modern life that I've read in a while. Highly recommended!

Parts of this book work really well, and parts are iffy or even viscerally disgusting. I'm sorry to say that ultimately it has not stayed with me - I finished it only a couple weeks ago and had to look it up on Goodreads to remind me what it was about.

Edge Case
By YZ Chin

This is a very strange book. After having read the whole thing, I can't decide whether or not I liked or would recommend it. It is the story of an immigrant couple from Maylasia – Edwina is ethnically Chinese; Marlin is a Chindian – neither one is muslim.

Both husband and wife have been living in New York City on work visas for several years. Both Edwina and Marlin have many issues due to culture differences, but the plan is to stay in the US.

One day, Edwina comes home to find that Marlin has deserted her with no apparent warning. The story goes on to describe her search for him, her problems at work, even misunderstandings with friends and family.

I am not sure that the amount of detail expended on all these things really moves the story ahead. I found that I was getting impatient for the story to end.

What an interesting book it was really interesting to see how these people were trying to fit in from the Philippines and how this girl Eduardo had issues She was with her mother because her father died very young and she broke in that type of environment and she came to America and she met a friendlyakatend she tried to be like her because she's always overweight and she tried so hard to be please everybody then she married this man called Marlin and he was also from the Philippines but he was really good looking and he was very kind to her but this book was very interesting because I took stories from the Philippines past And plotted to this so when his father died he cut a into this experimentalistic thing and he couldn't really relate to his wife anymore because I don't know what to do so she was like kind of a hero thing but ybut he wasn't really happy there you'll find that out later in the book and how she goes to all this crazy the situations and she misses the robot cat and she does finally find him but still they did not get together and I like how they took the short stories and and put them in the main stories because you can show you how things can get a screwed when you take old ideas and try to put him in modern world when some people cannot handle that

Edge case is a a great read. It's a story that goes back and forth between the past and present. The story is told by Edwina, the main character, as if she was speaking to a therapist. She retells how her husband left her and things that led up to his departure. As she tells this, you get glimpses into the misogyny/sexism she deals with at work, the body shaming she deals within herself that is rooted because of her mother, as well as the fact that you truly never know someone fully. Your mind will trick you into many things when you experience grief and you get to see that in this book. Would highly recommend to anyone, especially those who want to know more about the American experience if you're not from here.

An edge case is a problem or situation that occurs only at an extreme (maximum or minimum) operating parameter. When her husband suddenly disappears, Edwina must uncover where he went—and who she might be without him—in this striking debut of immigration, identity, and marriage.
Enjoyable and easily read in about 2 days. I did find myself wanting to shake Edwina a little bit. She puts up with way too much from Marlin, her husband, despite his grief from the early passing of his father. She also deals with ginormous fools at her job; but putting up with those jerks also hinges on her green card status, so she really doesn't want to rock the boat. The ending was also a tad confusing. Will Marlin & Edwina get back together now that she's figured out the problem? Will they stay in America or move back to Malaysia? Read Edge Case to find out.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic ARC.*