Literary Fiction | Book Chatter

Vacuum in the Dark
By Jen Beagin
Scribner, January 2020, 240pp.

The Short of It:

This book continually snapped in my face to get my attention. It was unhinged and I kind of loved that about it.

The Rest of It:

Mona cleans houses for a living and she’s seen some things. People who defecate and leave little presents all over their homes for her to find. Soiled sheets (use your imagination). A person can tell a lot about you by the sheets you leave behind. Although she prefers to do her work in an empty house, sometimes her clients show interest or provide additional information to an otherwise confusing personal item.

She knows the bedroom habits of her clients. What’s happening, and what’s not. Her quiet, not adverse reaction to chaos draws people in. Enough so, that clients cross line entering her personal space and become something more. Exactly what, she’s not sure.

Everything has happened to Mona. She’s been raped, more than once but didn’t want to make a big deal of it. She’s been used as a muse for art, exposing her naked body for others to gaze upon and define. She’s had relations with married men and well out in the open. Open relationships should be less confusing. Right?

Although Mona seems to have done it all and doesn’t appear to be the worse for it, she’s suffering from a lack of self-worth and a deep yearning for home, whatever that is. Enter Claire, Mona’s mother who shacked up with some weirdo but has suddenly given up drugs and wants Mona to come for a visit.

Everyone in this novel is flawed beyond belief. They do despicable things and yet, you can’t hate them because of the honest way they just lay it all out. It’s like walking through a door and saying this is who I am, deal with it. Mona and many of these character experience life changing scenarios. Ones that initially confuse but eventually provide clarity.

I’ve been vague about the plot because you have to experience Vacuum in the Dark for yourself. It caught me completely off guard but I loved Beagin’s last book Big Swiss so I dived in.

This was a follow-up to another book but it felt like a standalone.

Read it.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Blob: A Love Story
By Maggie Su
Harper, January 2026, 256pp.

The Short of It:

Wild and unbelievable and yet fascinating.

The Rest of It:

Vi has always lived just outside the circle.

At work, she hovers at the edge of conversations. With friends, she’s the afterthought invite. In relationships, she’s the one who tries harder. No matter the room, no matter the people, Vi is always almost in, but not quite.

Then one night, she steps outside her apartment and sees it.

A blob.

Translucent. Gently pulsing. Breathing, somehow, beside the dented trash can. It looks like a jellyfish stranded without water, faintly luminous under the flickering security light. It shouldn’t exist. It definitely shouldn’t be alive.

Vi stares. The blob quivers.

She goes back inside.

But she can’t stop thinking about it.

When she checks again, it’s still there—only now it seems slightly different. Larger?

Against her better judgment—and possibly against all common sense—Vi takes it home.

Recently dumped and painfully untethered, Vi isn’t sure what she has to offer a mysterious gelatinous lifeform. Still, she makes space for it in her tiny apartment. She feeds it. Talks to it. Names it Bob. She teaches Bob how to mimic her—how to stretch, to balance, to grow something resembling limbs.

And Bob learns.

Fast.

Soon Bob the Blob isn’t just pulsing near a storage bin. He’s developing arms. Legs. A torso. A very attractive torso. With each lesson Vi gives him, how to speak, how to move, how to smile, he becomes more human. More independent. More aware.

And harder to control.

Because free will, it turns out, isn’t something you can selectively grant.

As Bob grows into something dazzling and dangerously charismatic, Vi is forced to confront what she’s actually created. Was she trying to build companionship? Control? Someone who wouldn’t leave?

Meanwhile, there’s Rachel. Vi’s relentlessly cheerful coworker. The kind of woman who brings homemade muffins on Mondays and somehow means it when she asks how you’re doing. Rachel is everything Vi isn’t: socially fluent, effortlessly included, suspiciously happy.

Vi doesn’t know whether she wants to be Rachel… or prove she’s fake.

Between managing Bob’s rapid evolution and navigating her own spiraling insecurities, Vi begins to understand something uncomfortable: independence isn’t the same thing as fulfillment. Being alone doesn’t make you strong. Sometimes it just makes you lonely.

Bob may be otherworldly, absurd, even a little ridiculous—but what he ultimately reflects back to Vi is painfully human. We are not built to exist in isolation. We can pretend we don’t need anyone. We can wear independence like armor.

But connection is not weakness.

It’s survival.

Fantastical, sharp, and darkly funny, this story explores loneliness, belonging, and what happens when you try to engineer love instead of risking it.

Recommend but you must go in with an open mind.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

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