Checking Out

By: Meryem El Mehdati

Narrated by: Sarah Agha

'So biting and refreshingly honest that the real world feels just a little more ridiculous by comparison'
Jinwoo Chong, author of Flux

'Honest, intelligent and funny'
Andrea Abreu, author of Dogs of Summer

Life is like a supermarket.

Her name is Meryem, but you'd be surprised at how difficult people find that to spell. Meryem is twenty-five years old and has just started working at the offices of Supersaurio: the most important supermarket chain in the Canary Islands. Watched over by the chain's benevolent blue dinosaur logo, Meryem contends with co-workers who don't mean to sound sexist, but aren't women just harder work than men?, a boss who seems determined to make Meryem's life as miserable as possible, and Omar - smart, funny, very-senior-but-nevertheless-seems-like-a-normal-person Omar, who also happens to be devastatingly handsome.

We follow Meryem as she makes the transition from intern, to temp, to arrive finally at the promised land of fixed employment - only to find that she might have left part of her soul behind.©2025 Meryem El Mehdati (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited