I've done it for a few years, although I've only finished all the books, maybe once? The books are all high quality writing, but there's such a variety, that there are always some I love and some I don't care for, which I guess is the point!

Thank you for making this list! I’m so glad to see ToB here on Pagebound!

The brackets are here!! Drumroll, fanfare, French horns!!!

I just realized The Unveiling is by the author of We Ride Upon Sticks which was such a great book! Funny, fun, and meaningful. So it is next for me. Just finished The Mind Reels, and while I found it skilled and probably accurate, it was bleak and disturbing and I couldn’t find much (anything?) to redeem it. I did not enjoy being in her head!!

Ahhh!!! It’s starting! Somehow I had in my head that it was starting on Monday, so I’m surprised and excited! I’m going to fill in my brackets in INK before I read today’s match. (I still have not finished several books, but I’m glad to plow forward in semi ignorance) I did order a t shirt for the first time (I can’t think of it without hearing Macklemore’s voice saying, “$50 for a t-shirt?”) and my hope is that someone local will see it and I’ll make a ToB friend IRL

Endling V Buffalo: There is no reason to make art simply to present pain, or pleasure, for that matter. ‘It should be otherwise’ It’s not the winner I picked, but I concur

I got access to all of them except The Director, either physical books on my desk or audiobooks on my device. I’m thinking of skipping I Love You Bunny because I think it’s like gory mean girls and I don’t like gore or girl on girl bitchiness. I could be wrong, tho. But time constraints!

Wilderness V Metallic Realms

I just started reading the match and when she said “heartbreak” it hit me, the loss at the end of both of the books is so shocking and similar

What do Blob and Flesh have in common? Interrogating the same central concerns … What it feel like to be alive now LOL That really feels like reaching. I mean also, they’re both written in English. They both have characters and a plot. They both demonstrate how an author can string words together and create meaning…

Endling v Passenger Seat

Reading the judgement, my ire about how he (was the judge a man, I honestly wasn’t paying attention, but how could it not be? I’ll come back penitent if the judge is a woman) he was just not appreciating the meta of Endling, totally missed the point about telling someone to monitor their tone as they tell you the story of their tragedy… and then I thought to myself, cool your jets, woman, you didn’t even read Passenger Seat. And then I got to Maeve saying, ok, I read it, but still, (all caps) exhausted by nihilistic male violence. And, yeah, that’s where I am. Lemme go watch Heated Rivalry to calm down.

Yesterday someone said, “it’s going to wind up Flesh v Passenger Seat” and now I’m worried. But it would be sweet if Endling zombies it away