Today, we start the quarterfinals. I’ve talked about all of the books now, so here, I’m going to start focusing on the head-to-head matchups. Of course, the fact that there was a difference of opinion on what books should have moved on the first matchup. So I will start with
Alternative history
In my opinion, the matchup should have been Boys Weekend vs Dayswork, which would have given us two books which are opposites in nearly every way. A graphic novel vs poetic prose. Heavily plotted vs nearly plotless. Action-packed vs meditative. Fantastic vs ostensibly autobiographical. So the question becomes which is the best at what it does and while it’s a close call, I would go with Dayswork to advance.
The current match-up
It would be simple to simply declare, Dayswork > Boys Weekend, Boys Weekend > Blackouts, therefore Dayswork > Blackouts, but it’s worth comparing the two a bit more directly. Blackouts, like Dayswork is as much about other books as it is about its ostensible narrative. There’s a lot of art to how Blackouts works, and putting them head to thead, I am tempted to give Blackouts another shot, and when I think about it, it’s a close call, so before looking at the official judgment, I pick Blackouts to advance in this matchup.
My judgment on the judgment
Nicole Acheampong, given the matchup between Dayswork and Blackouts came up with a similar decision to mine on the current matchup. Not much more to say about that.
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