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.
At its best, the collection is an excellent homage to George Saunders, with its strange details and forms efficiently pulling readers to the emotional heart of a story. But sometimes the stories feel zany just for the sake of zaniness, their human elements buried beneath a slick guise of goofiness. Still, Bob-Waksberg’s fiction debut will capture many readers with its formal innovation, playful language, and relatable portraits of romance gone awry.
... deftly and confidently written, full of experimental fun ... Bob-Waksberg manages to balance his ironic humor with a deep sincerity that continues to surprise and delight. While some pieces are certainly more successful than others — a couple of stories rely too heavily on their structural gimmick or go on too long without giving us a reason to care — the majority do that mysterious thing that good art can do: make your heart clench with feeling, your eyes fill with tears, your lips twitch toward a smile or all three at once.
Some stories are tragi-comic briefs threaded with biting details that leave a mark, like a flicked jab in a boxing match ... Longer stories onjure struggles for connection in grimly surreal alternative realities that recall the probing comic imaginings of George Saunders ... it’s easy to draw a dotted line from Saunders’ dystopian visions to the at times fantastic worlds Bob-Waksberg sets in motion ... an extension of the comic rule of following the absurd to its most extreme, and Bob-Waksberg follows it beautifully ... The book proves Bob-Waksberg can conjure many modern miseries beyond those of a talking horse, but not all his ventures pay off so well ... for all its darkness, Someone Who Will Love You should be considered a lighter, amusing confection, one whose sweeter sides shine that much brighter with its balance of bitterness.
...an imperfect but promising debut from a writer whose view of relationships seems to alternate between hopeful and jaundiced ... Bob-Waksberg concentrates on the human aspects, only slyly waving at the extraordinary — human relationships, he seems to be saying, are weirder than anything else our imaginations can come up with. But while Bob-Waksberg clearly has a vast imagination, he's actually at his best when he takes on the world as we know it, with no superheroes or alternate universes ... Not all of the stories in the collection succeed, however. Bob-Waksberg sometimes allows his whimsy to get the better of him ... To his credit, Bob-Waksberg is willing to take risks — some of the stories in the book are told in the second person, which he consistently manages to pull off ... you have to admire Bob-Waksberg for his open-heartedness and his ambition — when you swing for the fences enough times, you're bound to whiff once in a while. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory is a mixed bag, and when the author stumbles, it can be difficult to read. Nonetheless, it's a respectable book with some excellent work in it, and Bob-Waksberg clearly has real potential as a writer of fiction.
This offbeat collection of bad romances will be a treat for fans of Bob-Waksberg’s animated cult comedy but also fits squarely into the type of wry humor practiced by peers like Amy Sedaris and Simon Rich ... While the author’s longer prose is deft, his humor lands more squarely in pieces that might seem gimmicky—lists, riffs, and bitterly funny imagined scenarios ... While not pushing to the limits to which Bob-Waksberg is demonstrably capable, a savage sendup of love in all its dubious glory.
Bob-Waksberg hones his wonderfully absurd and unexpectedly moving style ... Sometimes the author’s premises go on a beat too long ... But mostly Bob-Waksberg successfully tempers the ridiculous with a sharp tug at the heartstrings ... These stories are at times poignant and triumphantly silly, but always manage to ring true.
