Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory
Author: Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Published: 2020
Length: 256 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

From the creator and executive producer of the beloved and universally acclaimed television series BoJack Horseman, a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love–the best and worst thing in the universe

Written with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s stories will make readers laugh, weep, and shiver in uncomfortably delicious recognition. In “A Most Blessed and Auspicious Occasion,” a young couple planning a wedding is forced to deal with interfering relatives dictating the appropriate number of ritual goat sacrifices. “Missed Connection–m4w” is the tragicomic tale of a pair of lonely commuters eternally failing to make that longed-for contact. The members of a rock band in “Up-and-Comers” discover they suddenly have superpowers–but only when they’re drunk. And in “The Serial Monogamist’s Guide to Important New York City Landmarks,” a woman maps her history of romantic failures based on the places she and her significant others visited together.

Equally at home with the surreal and the painfully relatable (or both at once), Bob-Waksberg delivers a killer combination of humor, romance, whimsy, cultural commentary, and crushing emotional vulnerability. The resulting collection is a punchy, perfect bloody valentine.

How and when I got it:

I bought the paperback about a year ago.

Why I want to read it:

To be very specific, I bought this book on my daughter’s recommendation. This goes back to a blog post I did that was about her favorite books read so far that year, and she told me that this story collection was a must-read.

This is definitely not an obvious choice for me, because I’m not much of a short story reader. I don’t have a great attention span when it comes to story collections, and have a tendency to give up after only a few stories.

Still, I do love (a) the title of this collection, (b) the cover, and (c) the fact that my daughter — who has excellent taste in books — spoke so highly of it. (I’m also fairly certain that the author’s family and my family have a connection back in our home town, not that that really matters). From what I can see from the synopsis, the stories sound weird and quirky, which could mean that they’d be right up my alley.

What do you think? Would you read this book?

Please share your thoughts!

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Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

• Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
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Have fun!