This is an intense book with an intricate comprehension of and a deep feeling for life at the margins with badly paid toils, scummy apartments, dismal food and bad options.
Zou Lei, an ethnic Uighur from northwest China, slipped into the U.S. without papers. She works in the kitchen of a small Chinese restaurant in Queens, and the other workers don’t understand her language. Her biggest fear is to be caught by the immigration authorities.
One day she bumps into Skinner, an injured, tattooed, depressed and mentally unbalanced veteran of the Iraq war. He lives in a basement apartment in Queens, with fitness magazines, pornography and pizza boxes spread around his bed. The extraordinary, bitter love story which soon develops is as far away from romantic frills as it gets.
Skinner with his war traumas is not always nice to Zou, whom he calles Zooey. Zou struggles with the language and tries to understand Skinner's unpredictable behavior. They are a very unlikely couple who's only communality seems to be their shared interest in working out. Of course it will end badly, Though not so much for Zou, the stronger gender, driven from a deep will to live.
This is a first novel. I guess we will hear more from Atticus Lish.

in the fridge
-------------

Dear finder

Thank you for looking up Bookcrossing and entering the number. Please, kindly write a short journal entry, that you own the book now. You can do this anonymously, but it's much more fun if you'll become a member and write under your nick name. It's still anonymous, but you'll get a notification every time somebody writes a new entry. You are able to follow the book's voyage and read the opinions of other readers. Bookcrossing is fun, it's free and free of spam. Try it, it might change your life. Or at least your bookshelf ;)

happy reading
=^,^= spy