Book
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory
by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
📖 Overview
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory is a collection of short stories about relationships, love, and human connection. The stories range from realistic contemporary tales to surreal narratives set in alternate realities.
The collection features characters navigating dating, marriage, breakups, and family bonds across diverse settings. These include a dating show where contestants must survive challenges on an active volcano, a world where couples must adopt presidential dogs before marriage, and more grounded scenarios of everyday romance.
Each story employs different formats and styles, from traditional narratives to experimental structures like instruction manuals and second-person perspectives. The author moves between comedy and drama, balancing humor with genuine emotional stakes.
The collection explores how people seek and maintain connections despite their flaws and the inherent messiness of relationships. Through both realistic and absurdist scenarios, the stories examine what it means to be truly known and accepted by another person.
👀 Reviews
Readers call these short stories quirky, experimental, and emotionally resonant. Many describe the collection as having a similar tone to BoJack Horseman (which Bob-Waksberg created), blending absurdist humor with raw observations about relationships and human nature.
Readers appreciated:
- The creative narrative formats and structures
- Balance of humor and melancholy
- Authentic portrayal of modern relationships
- Memorable imagery and metaphors
Common criticisms:
- Uneven quality between stories
- Some concepts feel gimmicky
- Several stories end abruptly
- Too similar in tone to BoJack Horseman
Review Scores:
Goodreads: 3.9/5 (11,000+ ratings)
Amazon: 4.5/5 (300+ reviews)
Notable reader comments:
"Each story feels like a punch to the gut wrapped in a joke"
"The experimental formats sometimes get in the way of the storytelling"
"Perfect for anyone who loves BoJack's mix of comedy and sadness"
📚 Similar books
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
Short stories explore the complexities of relationships and human connection through experimental narrative structures and dark humor.
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July Tales of loneliness and connection unfold through unconventional characters who navigate love and intimacy in modern society.
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah Stories blend magical realism with everyday life to examine family dynamics, relationships, and human nature across cultural boundaries.
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Short stories merge satire with social commentary to depict relationships and human behavior in a world of consumerism and racial tension.
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon Interconnected stories reveal the bonds between people through the lens of military families and their struggles with separation and connection.
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July Tales of loneliness and connection unfold through unconventional characters who navigate love and intimacy in modern society.
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah Stories blend magical realism with everyday life to examine family dynamics, relationships, and human nature across cultural boundaries.
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Short stories merge satire with social commentary to depict relationships and human behavior in a world of consumerism and racial tension.
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon Interconnected stories reveal the bonds between people through the lens of military families and their struggles with separation and connection.
🤔 Interesting facts
🌟 The book's author, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, is best known as the creator of the critically acclaimed animated series "BoJack Horseman" on Netflix.
💝 Many stories in the collection explore love through surreal or unconventional lenses, including one about a couple getting married in a world where weddings require human sacrifices.
📖 The book's title comes from a line in the story "Lunch with the Person Who Dumped You," which examines the complex emotions of post-breakup encounters.
🎭 Like his work on BoJack Horseman, Bob-Waksberg blends humor and melancholy throughout the collection, often using absurdist scenarios to illuminate deeper truths about relationships.
✍️ The collection features 18 different stories, ranging from traditional narrative formats to experimental styles, including one written as a set of rules for a made-up board game.