Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

 TBR.co is a service that allows a reader to get reading recommendations that are tailored to the individual reader. I originally signed up for the service in the spring of the Covid shut down. I've received 66 book recommendations and I've read most of them. Most of them are things I wouldn't have picked up on my own, and I've enjoyed them all with only a handful of exceptions. However, sometimes my recommender lobs me a curve ball.

This is a novel about a romance between an amorphous blob monster and a young eccentric noblewoman estranged from her family. 

Hello curve ball. 

In a general sense, this book is right up my alley. A fantasy setting with a unique protagonist, Shesheshen. Shesheshen spends most of her life as a blob resting at the bottom of a hot spring in a ruined manor. One season she is roused out of hibernation early when her home is invaded by monster hunters. She molds her body around a variety old junk like chains and bear traps to give herself a mostly human-ish form and attacks the intruders. She wins, but she is terribly wounded. She is found later by a young woman named Homily who begins to nurse the monster in human disguise back to health. 

To Shesheshen, love means finding a host for her eggs. When the eggs hatch, they devour their host from the inside. Shesheshen is in love. However, as she and Homily grow closer, Shesheshen discovers that she doesn't want her girlfriend to get eaten. Maybe love should mean something else.

Oh, and there's also a continuing conflict between the local ruler who is psychotically evil and her equally twisted family that draws the local town into something akin to a pitched battle. 

It's an odd book and I spent most of my read unsure of my opinion. I finished it several weeks ago and had a hard time writing this post because of this. After a few weeks time, I've come to the conclusion that I liked the book. It's really a romance, but a really weird one and that's refreshing. There's a lot of body horror rolled in since the protagonist tends to steal bones and organs from her victims. It's definitely not for everyone, but an interesting read.