“No one should ever work at a gas station long enough to get good at it,” observes Brendan, the narrator of the debut novel from Sean Trinder.

Brendan is 20. He’s been pumping gas for three years, working the evening shift at the CountryGas station in Winnipeg. He’s gotten good at it. Which is sad. And Brendan knows that unless something happens fast, he’ll be stuck in this rut forever, inhaling gas fumes and quietly seething at the idiot customers endlessly parading past him. Will the writing course he’s signed up for at the local university—and the older woman he meets there—be enough to get Brendan’s life back on track?

In The Guy Who Pumps Your Gas Hates You, Sean Trinder combines the profane humour of Kevin Smith with the big-hearted charm of Nick Hornby, while creating a uniquely winning character whose hard-won journey away from the gas station and into adulthood is impossible not to root for.