Reading as a Writer: Blob (A Love Story)

I saw Blob (A Love Story) by Maggie Su on a list of new releases, and then the next day lucked across it on the library's shelves. This was a very fun book that crossed the lines of literary and science fiction.

On more than one occasion I've tried to read this type of literary book: a twenty-something from a family that prioritizes academic success drops out of college and becomes depressed, or drops out of college because they are depressed, and then some relationship happens that doesn't fix them because (surprise) relationships can't fix depression or your own relationship with family pressures. Usually, by halfway through this type of book the main character's moroseness has sponged over to me and I feel too depressed to bother finishing the book.

That's not what happened with Blob. Although all the familiar lit-fic tropes were there, Blob had me laughing out loud and never dragged me down with the main character, maybe because Vi worked so hard to work things out with her Blob, her friends, her family, and her job.

I also loved that the speculative elements of this story were never explained. The blob just was. We never learned about what he was, where he came from; whether he was an alien or science gone wrong. In my own grounded speculative attempts, I always feel a pressure to fit in explanation of the speculative elements, which slowly change hte progression of the plot away from the character's journeys and towards larger stakes of the world. This book was a great example of what you can do if you just let go of the "why" and just let characters be.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and have been recommending it pretty widely!

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Audely Bensen Writes

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