Author: <span>D. A. Hosek</span>
In this last round of quarterfinals, I was only half-wrong in predicting the match-up, but half-wrong still is enough to generate An alternate universe In my alternate universe, the match-up would be between Monstrilio and The Bee Sting. Both look at complicated family dynamics with plenty of dysfunction to go around, and while I admired the magical […]
In the upper right corner of the grid, I completely disagreed with the judges of the first round, so we get a pair of completely non-overlapping competitions here. The alternate history In the universe where the judges made the correct decision, the match-up would be between Chain-Gang All-Stars and The Shamshine Blind. I’m faced with a choice […]
This is the only non first-round match-up where my predictions matched the official judgment so things stay a bit simpler here. Again, we’re faced with two very different books. The Lost Journals of Sacajawea is a deeply challenging book, one that pushes the boundaries of structure and language offering a great deal of unexplained native culture […]
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 premise of American Mermaid as laid out on the back cover sounds promising. The author of a popular young adult novel goes to Hollywood to work on the adaptation of the novel to a movie, but as Hollywood does what it does to novels it adapts, some mysterious force starts fighting back. This sounded like […]
Ah, the first round where I have to deal with my picks to advance not matching up with the official selections. So my format has to change a bit. First, a bit of alternate reality I’ll start with what I would have had the match-up be. The Bee Sting vs What You Are Looking For Is in […]
I first encountered Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s writing in his short story collection Friday Black. The first story in the collection, “The Finkelstein 5” blew me away so much that when I finished reading it in the back seat of a Lyft in January 2019, I wanted to tell the driver that he needed to pull over […]
The Guest promises chaos in the person of Alex, a call girl who’s on the run from a previous client from whom she stole a large sum of money and who had been hiding out in the Hamptons with a newer client until he grows bored of her presence and the fact that she damaged […]
Big Swiss was the only book in this year’s round that I’d read before the short list was announced thanks to my reading last summer’s Camp Tournament of Books selections. My thoughts on the book from last summer: “I found myself at turns fascinated and bored. The setup for the story was brilliant, but there […]