Odd Hours by Ania Bas

For Gosia, life is something that happens to other people. About to turn thirty, she works as a cashier in a large supermarket and shares a flat in London’s Zone 3 with Lyndsey, a judgemental beautician who keeps a diary, Gosia’s favourite reading material.

When the man of her dreams sidles up to her checkout, the quest for his affections propels Gosia to do things she has never done before. Quitting her job to become a personal trainer, she makes a very unlikely friend in Steve, invests in a self-help bible, ups her romance skills by going on practice dates, travels back to Poland, falls out with her mother and loses her job.

The novel carries us through suburban London, with its cheap cafes, depressing supermarkets, understaffed libraries, second-rate gyms and drab, rental flats. Sharp, discerning, tender and original, Ania celebrates the unknown and imperfect routes to happiness and fulfilment in a timely excavation of the myth of a perfect life.