Maggie Su's Blob: A Love Story is a funny and pathos-ridden tale of social awkwardness and self-realization; a modern, delayed coming-of-age. Su's narrative voice is perfectly pitched for her inelegant but deeply sympathetic protagonist.
Vi is a 24-year-old townie and college dropout in a midwestern college town. She is still suffering from a breakup eight months ago; her Taiwanese father and white mother are well-meaning and supportive, but they have trouble connecting with Vi. Then, she stumbles upon something new in the alley behind a bar: a shapeless blob with a mouth and two eyes. She carries it home and, under Vi's yearning influence, it grows.
The evolving blob, which Vi will come to call Bob, is the only fantastical detail in a story otherwise rooted in a very familiar world, featuring the casual racism of Vi's hometown and her awkwardness with social situations. Bob takes in lots of television (and Fruity Pebbles), and after examining the pictures Vi shows him of movie stars, fashions himself into a tall, stunningly handsome white man with a six-pack. But their pairing is, in fact, a strain: "For a while, he seemed happy enough to eat and breathe and exist--the perfect companion. I should've anticipated that molding him into a man would trigger something deeper, some sort of existential awakening."
What makes Blob special is its mix of heartrending conflict and silly, self-aware humor. Truly cringy scenes balance sweet ones. In the end, discomfiting though it may be, Blob makes incisive observations about life for a 20-something trying to make it on her own. Blobs and humans alike may yet find home. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia