‘A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways’
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here
A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect man…
Vi Liu’s life is a mess. Having dropped out of college, she’s stuck in a job she hates at a local hotel. Her ex-boyfriend has blocked her and she’s lashing out at her family and co-workers.
One night, drunk outside a drag club, she stumbles across a mysterious sentient blob. She takes it home, where she feeds it a diet of sugary cereal and reality TV. Slowly, she realises that she can shape the blob into her perfect man: someone attentive, outgoing and with more than a passing resemblance to Ryan Gosling.
But is Bob the blob really the answer to all her problems, or a catalyst for further disaster? Sharp, strange and very funny, BLOB is a delightful story about growing up, fucking up and learning how to be a real person.
‘A rollicking fun, funny, poignant coming of age story, filled with honesty and delight’
Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
‘Just brilliant — utterly original, charming and funny, weirdly real and really weird. I can’t stop thinking about this book and I’m telling everyone I know to read it’
Kate Davies, author of In at the Deep End
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here
A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect man…
Vi Liu’s life is a mess. Having dropped out of college, she’s stuck in a job she hates at a local hotel. Her ex-boyfriend has blocked her and she’s lashing out at her family and co-workers.
One night, drunk outside a drag club, she stumbles across a mysterious sentient blob. She takes it home, where she feeds it a diet of sugary cereal and reality TV. Slowly, she realises that she can shape the blob into her perfect man: someone attentive, outgoing and with more than a passing resemblance to Ryan Gosling.
But is Bob the blob really the answer to all her problems, or a catalyst for further disaster? Sharp, strange and very funny, BLOB is a delightful story about growing up, fucking up and learning how to be a real person.
‘A rollicking fun, funny, poignant coming of age story, filled with honesty and delight’
Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
‘Just brilliant — utterly original, charming and funny, weirdly real and really weird. I can’t stop thinking about this book and I’m telling everyone I know to read it’
Kate Davies, author of In at the Deep End
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Reviews
An inventive, utterly unique debut. BLOB is not only a deliciously creepy, deeply entertaining take on modern relationships, it's also a moving look at new adulthood, and the inherent vulnerability that comes along with figuring out exactly who you're meant to be
Unique, heartfelt, and hilarious, BLOB is a delightfully inquisitive meditation on relationships and identity. What responsibility do we have in the creation of our relationships? What do we bring and leave behind? And what repercussions exist when we force ourselves into an identity instead of nurturing our real selves? This winsome book pulls off the impossible feat of examining our deepest existential questions with equal parts tenderness and droll
Like a beguiling literary love child of Melissa Broder and Jeff VanderMeer, BLOB enthralls with raw intimacy and Frankensteinian science. This is a novel that dives headfirst into the gelatinous messiness of early adulthood - with its bad jobs, bad boyfriends, and bad decision-making - finding self-actualization along the way. Maggie Su's debut will make you laugh, shriek, and cheer for its wayward, wobbly inventions. BLOB is not to be missed!
While the sentient ball of goo in Maggie Su's BLOB certainly grabs the reader's attention, there is so much more at play in this wondrous novel. Vi, struggling to place herself in any context that makes sense within the world, earnestly leads us into a wild experiment, to turn a blob into the man of her dreams, and I was transfixed by her voice, a weird mix of excitement and dread. A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways.
What I love most about BLOB is the way it manages to imbue a zany comic premise with powerful emotion and deep thematic resonance. Maggie Su skilfully manages action, pacing, and tone, and the result is serious fun, both grave and entertaining. If I happened to come across an attentive blob, I would ask it to grow two hands and applaud this fresh, terrific debut
'In BLOB, Su's prose breathes magic, humor, and empathy into everything it touches . . . You'll want to read this in one sitting, but try to savor it: there are gems of laughter and insight to be unearthed on every page
A rollicking fun, funny, poignant coming-of-age story, filled with honesty and delight
BLOB is absolutely charming. Maggie Su's writing is imaginative and funny. Vi is a deliciously messy narrator who will make readers laugh, yes, but also think deeply about the relationship between love and generosity
Just brilliant - utterly original, charming and funny, weirdly real and really weird. I can't stop thinking about this book and I'm telling everyone I know to read it
Like all the best comic fiction, this delightful book is both laugh-out-loud funny and achingly poignant. I root for snarky, lonely Vi as she wrestles with the risks and rewards of embracing her entire, messy self. What happens to her might be surreal, but it has the deep resonance of truth