His literary exploration of love and loss is certainly as cogent, incisive, and gut-wrenching as any season of BoJack. But wherever he honed it, Bob-Waksberg’s mastery of episodic storytelling, along with an uncanny knack for tragicomedy, is on full display in his debut collection ... As with his series, Bob-Waksberg explores the human psyche through the surreal, using offbeat stories to reveal truths about our relationships with ourselves, each other, and even our pets ... Bob-Waksberg’s evocative prose opens up strange new realms and familiar sites of drudgery alike ... Here are 18 reminders that not all loss is tragic, not all love is all-consuming, and not every happy ending lasts forever; and these truths are more comforting than any fairy tale.
... channels much of the same caustic humor and heartrending dialogue as the Netflix series. The stories alternate between surreal, sci-fi–inspired tales and more grounded vignettes, but many are a poignant mixture of both tones.
I can say without hesitation that the collection surpasses my impossibly high expectations ... It’s the more mundane pieces, those that don’t feature a genre element or are less formally inventive, that prove to be the most powerful stories in the book ... a tremendous debut collection.
