Tournament of Books discussion

Today we start our Tournament off with a match between Glorious Exploits and Poor Deer. Our judge is Heather. I look forward to everyone's discussion! See you back here for our next judgement on Wednesday morning.

"I have a confession to make. This was never gonna be a fair fight with me as the judge. I’m a certified bookworm, and have been all my life. I’m about to turn 53 in a few weeks and according to my parents’ lore, I taught myself to read at about age 3, so I’ve clocked a few years on this. As such, I have become more and more finely tuned as to what types of books I enjoy, and what types of books are a struggle to get through. Of course, there are exceptions to the loose preferences I have in my head, and that is one of the reasons I love the Tournament of Books so much, because it forces me out of my reading comfort zone and occasionally introduces me to a book I would have never picked up on my own, that may even be a book in a genre I generally disdain, but that nevertheless works its charms on me all the same.

That didn’t happen to me here. The book I was predisposed to not enjoy as much, based on genre and description, was indeed the loser in this match up for this reader. And I feel a little bad about that because another judge without my same preferences might have very well chosen the other way, as both of the books I was tasked with judging were excellently written. But, one has to win and one has to lose, and if my reason for choosing the victor was that I much preferred reading it, well, that’s as good a reason as any I suppose.

Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky (better known as Lark Benobi to those of us in the Goodreads forums) is a deep dive into the psyche of a young girl named Margaret Murphy. The inciting incident is a doozy…Margaret accidentally causes the death of her best friend Agnes by locking her inside a cooler while they are playing a game. After Agnes’ death by suffocation, Margaret is only partially aware of her own culpability and is too young to completely process her feelings about the loss. Enter: Poor Deer, a hallucination? Manifestation? Imaginary friend? Whatever your feelings about Deer’s origins, it is clear she is a way for Margaret to cope with her grief, guilt and insecurity. In Margaret’s words:

“Poor Deer came to me when i was small, and scared, and alone, and in need of hope, however fragile, that one day I would find a way to make up for what I’d done. Her hooves kick out at my shins…A tooth for a tooth, and a claw for a claw, she always says. A life for a life, she always says. She leaves scat on the rugs, and cries easily. She is my oldest friend.”

The novel is structured as a teenage Margaret recalling this inciting incident while in a motel room on a pilgrimage to Niagara Falls, and the ending of the novel is ambiguous as to the reality, or not, of certain characters and to the ultimate ending of Margaret’s journey into adulthood.

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon is historical fiction with a heavy emphasis on the fiction. It takes place during the Peloponnesian War, on the island of Sicily, where a number of Athenians are being held as prisoners of war in a rock quarry. Our protagonist is Lampo, and when his friend Gelon decides he wants to use the prisoners to stage a production of Euripides' Medea (well, a two-fer of Medea and The Trojan Women, as it turns out), Lampo comes along for the ride, and it ends up being quite a ride indeed. The night of the play ends in violence and bloodshed:

“He raises the club, and Numa puts up a hand and says something I can’t make out, and then his face disappears beneath the dark wallop of wood, and the next time I see it, the head’s caved in. Another wallop, and it’s matted hair, yellow bits of skull, a flap of skin with a single brown eye. Biton stands over what’s left and prods it with the tip of his boot. There are tears pouring down his cheeks. He’s not alone. A bunch of fellas are with him–a few I recognize from the audience. They all have weapons of some sort, and they’re going for the chorus.”
The book is very playful in its use of language. The author is Irish, and the characters speak like funny rummies in the neighborhood pub instead of ancient Syracusians (I guess–I admit I don’t really know what an ancient Syracusian sounded like, but I am pretty sure they didn’t say ‘fuck’ as much as these blokes). It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and has as its main theme the enduring power and beauty of storytelling to make meaning out of our wretched lives.

So…my preferred genre of novel, aside from the catch-all “literary fiction”, is probably mysteries. I like a good who-dunit that keeps the pages turning, and where all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed by story’s end. I’m not a huge fan of magical realism, and I prefer my characters decidedly real or not real. That said, Poor Deer was such the clear winner for me in this match-up I almost feltl bad about it. I’m Irish by ancestry. I was a theater major. I love cuss words and the people who use them. But I just could not find purchase in Glorious Exploits no matter how hard I tried. I eventually had to switch to the audio version just to be able to finish it, and I have to confess that my mind was probably elsewhere for half of the novel. I do tend to blame it on the time and place of the setting. I was the same way in my Ancient History class in college…just could not force myself to even read much of the material, let alone digest it in any meaningful way. If I ever were to enjoy a novel set in ancient Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War, this one would probably be the one. I can tell the author is clever, and witty, and I did enjoy some of the novel on a sentence level. But, if you can’t hold my attention, you aren’t gonna be my winner

Poor Deer, while also a departure from the typical type of novel I enjoy, did have some elements that made it very easy for me to connect with, in particular, the psychological astuteness with which the characters are observed. I believed them, I connected with them, and I felt their pain along with them. I was absorbed in the story every step of the way, and far from finding the titular Deer just too unbelievable or a distraction to the main plot, I found her a quite illuminating device with which to plumb the depths of Margaret’s psyche, and psychic pain.

For this reader, Poor Deer advances in a landslide."

I think I likely would have come to the same result, but with much greater love for Glorious Exploits which checks a lot of boxes with its off-kilter plot in a little used era for historical fiction. It does well to marry it's oddball humor with absolute tragedy. If the prompt was Lennon wanting to write a theatre book with no comparables, I think they nailed it.

Great write-up!

I read these both long enough ago that I can't remember much detail about why, but I really loved Glorious Exploits and only liked Poor Deer. The mashup of humor and tragedy in GE was really well done, I agree!

LOVED Glorious Exploits, but Poor Deer is a fine book as well.

Poor Deer was my winner in this matchup as well. But I actually struggled to get into it initially. I'm glad I pushed through because what a strong quiet tale of how kids deal with unspeakable grief. I love Greek classics, so I figured Glorious Exploits would be a slam dunk! While I appreciated the contemporary Irish humor (and narration of the audiobook by author Ferdia Lennon), I found the main character, Lampo, quite insufferable. And the overall character arch/development felt very sitcomish. Like through arts they learned to see the humanity in their enemies, or somesuch!

Thanks Heather! I love both of these books. The theme of art in a violent and chaotic point in history is one of my favorites though which puts Glorious Exploits ahead for me. But then again Poor Deer’s look at the trauma of a small child is amazing.

Ahh my judgment is up! Yeah I guess I already said it all but i did truly feel bad about Glorious Exploits in that i know its a me problem and not the fault of the book...I'm just not the right reader for it. But i really did truly love Poor Deer. One of my favorite reads from last year.

That's the beauty of being a judge! Your opinion is the only thing that matters for that particular decision, no need to apologize for it. ;)
Plus, you explained your reasoning very clearly and gave both books their due.

Great start to this wonderful tournament and what a slate of books we have! I loved Poor Deer and it gave me all the feels. That said, I came to GE with zip zero knowledge of any of it and must say, I was blown away! I found it unique and even delightful. I think more readers need to know about it - more spotlight on this dare I say “fun” read? I wish I had done the audiobook - the Irishness of it went over my head until I kept seeing it mentioned in reviews - I can’t seem to balance my wish for total spoiler-free with needing to know just enough to “get it” properly. Complicated historical fiction is my jam.

Better late than never, right?

Thanks to everyone for getting this rolling. I just pulled out my reading journals to see how I felt about these books right after reading them.

It looks like I finished Glorious Exploits in early June, which shocked me to see. It feels like a lifetime ago (I guess it was in a way, since I lost my job on June 13th, so there's a major before-and-after rift there). As Heather mentioned, I also struggled to follow the story. I read this on audio, and my mind drifted frequently. But there were multiple engaging moments, and I thought there was plenty to appreciate (I could see how some would love it). I'm a fan of important and thought-provoking themes, and that is certainly present with this book.

This was one of my favorite lines from it: "Common sense is common, has no imagination, and only works by precedent. It leaves the man who follows it poorer. If not in pocket, then in his heart."

I read Poor Deer in February 2024. I remember it fondly, even if not many details. My review helps it all click back into place, with some specifics still being fuzzy:

"What an incredibly unique story! The way Margaret's story was told felt hauntingly real. I was left guessing throughout the book as to what was true and what was imagined until I gave in and let it all blend together. As a reader of this particular story, I learned to accept each piece of the narrative on its own terms and release the urge to distinguish fact from fiction. Poor Deer is a quiet yet powerful exploration of grief, guilt, and the stories we tell ourselves (for better or worse) to make sense of all the awful things in this world. But we can also learn to appreciate the shocking beauty we stumble upon, as Margaret does, and also find a path to forgiving ourselves."

One of my favorite lines from Poor Deer: "The next day had come, like a repeating miracle."

I think "unique" fits both books well for this matchup, but Poor Deer was the winner for my preferences as well. Thanks for your efforts and thoughtful judgment, Heather!

I’ve probably said this before elsewhere, but Glorious Exploits is one that I strongly recommend on audio, for those that listen.

Our second match-up pits I Cheerfully Refuse against The Safekeep, and Jan is our judge today. Come back on Friday for the start of the ToB also-rans part of the bracket.

Edited to include the correct version of Jan's decision!

"Round 1: The Safekeep vs I Cheerfully Refuse

This round of the Tournament of Favorites pits a 38 year-old female, Dutch-Israeli, debut author and writing instructor against a 64 year-old, male, self-identified Christian from the Upper Midwest with three best-selling novels and a 20-year career at Minnesota Public Radio under his belt.

Both authors—Yael van der Wouden and Leif Enger-- have created well-written, thought-provoking novels that address serious themes with great style. One of them was, for me, much more satisfying than the other.

The Safekeep

I was a history major in college, lo, these many decades ago, and I love female-centric stories. So I was quick to pick up The Safekeep. I listened to it last summer, when it appeared on the 2024 Booker Prize longlist, and then read the paper edition as I prepared to judge the ToF. The Safekeep, meanwhile, had moved on to the Booker short list, and in June 2025, it won the Women’s Prize for Fiction. (I’m not quite sure how this is relevant, but I thought I’d share that at the Women’s Prize acceptance ceremony, van der Wouden stated for the first time publicly that she considers herself to be intersex. See, for example, https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/bo....)

The Safekeep runs on two tracks. On one, it deals with the historical issues of how Dutch Jews were treated during World War II—particularly how those returning from concentration camps were treated over their belongings having been stolen or confiscated during the war. Then there’s the personal level, which, among other things, includes a long chapter of exploratory erotic sex between the novel’s two finely drawn main characters: the deeply unlikeable Isabel, with her personal cruelty and neurotically driven attachment to “her” house and its belongings; and Eva, who’s less overtly neurotic but has her own deep attachment to the house and its belongings and is still plenty annoying.

Both tracks play out through a tightly controlled structure that rewards a careful, line-by-line rereading. Van der Wouden’s control and her point-of-view shifts keep the lacuna of the novel a secret throughout much of the book, so that at different points in the story, we perceive the book as being “about” something different.

Some aspects of The Safekeep are problematic. What would make Eva fall in love with Isabel after Isabel has been so cruel to her? And, given the novel’s setting in 1961, wouldn’t Isabel and Eva have felt more shame about their sexuality and more fear about the risks of discovery? But those reservations were balanced by van der Wouden’s skill at keeping me invested in her characters and rooting for the two women to resolve their differences. (And I may never look at a pear in quite the same way again.)

I Cheerfully Refuse

Enger has said I Cheerfully Refuse is his pandemic novel, written to counter his feelings of isolation and reflect his desire for community during Covid. Accordingly, I Cheerfully Refuse gives us, in Rainy, an admirable main character and a plot that puts him in situations with opportunities for people to work together and do the right thing. There are also many, many gorgeous sentences—the man can write!

I was predisposed to like I Cheerfully Refuse. I had loved Enger’s debut novel, Peace Like a River, when I read it around 2010, and it retained a rosy glow of memory in 2025.

In I Cheerfully Refuse, though, several of Enger’s writing choices left me feeling cranky, carrying on a running argument with the author as I went deeper into the story:

1. An author is certainly entitled to write the novel he or she wants, but a post-apocalyptic novel without an apocalypse—or at least some clarity about the events and forces that produced the current environment and the timeline under which they unfolded—left me feeling lost at times. The OCD part of my brain was not happy, and several times I backed up to see if Enger was providing clues or explanations that I’d missed.

2. Rainy’s wife Lark was a veritable manic pixie dream girl: wise, sensitive, all-seeing, all-knowing. Killing her off in a violent attack at around the one-fourth mark seemed to emphasize that Enger was using her to goose the plot, couldn’t envision her as a full-fledged female, and didn’t know what to do with her once she’d set Rainy off on his watery mission. Bah, humbug!

3. Much of the last three-fourths of the book felt like a repetitive, male-centered adventure story. I was ready for the book to be over long before Enger was.

So, with apologies to my Goodreads friends who liked I Cheerfully Refuse a whole lot more than I did (and made it the winner of the 2025 Tournament of Books Summer Bracket, no less!), I’m cheerfully advancing The Safekeep."

Lauren wrote: "Better late than never, right?"

So that you won't be the last....

This was no contest for me. Maybe in part because I haven't gotten to =Glorious Exploits= yet, but mostly because I found Margaret's voice in =Poor Deer= so compelling, and the complicated reconstructions and rationalizations arising from that trauma so moving. It was unexpected and revealing and True in the best way.

I think I too would choose The Safekeep to win this contest though I may have liked I Cheerfully Refuse better than you did. The sail around Lake Superior while being chased was a really enjoyable adventure for me to read. But I’m a sucker for WWII history and I felt the sex scenes were great. Others felt they were gratuitous.

Thank you for bringing biographical info on both authors. It’s interesting and it’s one way of looking at a novel that sometimes I consider and sometimes not.

Well, here we have a pretty familiar match-up - the final of the summer TOB tournament!

I'm glad that the summer tournament went the other way. "I Cheerfully Refuse" remains one of my favorite books of the past few years. I don't think it insults the reader's intelligence to leave out 'what happened' - we're seeing things from Rainy's eyes and he's not a guy to wonder what's happening beyond his immediate surroundings.

I do think the fridging of Lark wasn't done perfectly, but Rainy's adventures that followed - especially becoming a father figure to the girl he found - were interesting and exciting, because I cared about Rainy.

I thought it was extremely refreshing that we DID NOT know the reason for the world falling apart. Tell a personal story of now and skip all the macro stuff. So many apocaypse book in the last 15 years, I enjoyed not having to dig deep again. I have not read the Safekeep but I own it and plan to! I really enjoyed I Cheerfully Refuse. In a time of increasing isolation, it's great to see perspectives where community is celebrated.

I agree with Kip, the not knowing was a positive for me in Refuse. Writing a novel with a positive outlook while not turning twee or pollyanna-ish is a fine needle to thread and I think this book did it well!

Oof. Thank you, Jan, for pointing out that Yael van der Wouden is Israeli. I didn't know that before reading the book, and that certainly provides a different context for the story.

The debate over how much to weigh authors and their actions (or inactions) in analyzing/reviewing/judging their books can be endless. I can see how there's no "right" answer there, but it's not something I can personally look away from.

While the author doesn't appear to be taking a vocal zionist stance, she's listed in a discord group I found as a Jewish author who does not speak against Israel's genocide of Gaza (and additional searching provided some other markers, and no evidence to the contrary).

So in that context, to write a book connected to the Holocaust (and specifically focused on a subject that is also a significant part of Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israeli settlers who stole their homes), just doesn't land well with me. Publishing this story at this time with no recognition of the connection to the current genocide signals that she's on the side of "never again-to us" instead of "never again-to anyone." I can see how the story now promotes that narrative. And that makes Safekeep a different type of book for me.

Anyway, I'm going to let this go since there are more effective ways I can address my concerns on the topic of one of today's horrors.

Back to the books here... I'm with Kyle, Kip, and Chrissy on appreciating Cheerfully declining to explain the apocalypse. That made the stakes higher for me, since it read as our likely (and very near) future. It hit very close to home, and the path we've already taken many steps toward.

I think someone in a Summer Camp comment provided a take on Lark's death that resonated for me (it didn't bother me as a part of the story's plot - without it, it would have been an entirely different story).

So I would have gone the other way here, but since Cheerfully won the summer tournament, the loss here doesn't sting as much.

Thanks for your thorough review, Jan!

Oof, I didn't even consider that aspect of Safekeep. Makes it even more problematic.

My apologies for pasting in the wrong version of the judgement from Jan. I've updated my post above. I don't think there was a ton of changes, but even so I know we all like our most polished version to be public when we write! Sorry Jan, my mistake.

Chrissy, thanks for catching and correcting the posting error.

Thanks to Laureen for digging deeper into van der Wouden's relative silence on current issues and providing such a thoughtful summary.

And thanks to everyone for your kind responses to my judgment. I like to think of myself as a generous reader, so I was surprised and a bit nonplussed to realize how out-in-left-field my very negative responses to I Cheerfully Refuse were compared to the consensus here and in ToB world. Maybe I'll wait till the time pressures are off and give Cheerfully a second read and see if it hits differently. Meanwhile, there's always a chance for a Cheerful zombie!

Today's match-up between There Are Rivers in the Sky and Two-Step Devil was judged by Bryn:

"There Are Rivers in the Sky and Two-Step Devil are two very different books and I have to decide which one progresses through the tournament and which does not. Ok here goes. The author of TARITS, Elif Shafak, is a British-Turkish writer. The author of TSD, Jamie Quattro, is from southeastern US. The first is historical fiction taking place at 4 different times in 2 countries. The second takes place in Lookout Mountain, Alabama in 2014 with some flashbacks and some speculations about the future.

TARITS starts with King Ashurbanipal in Ninevah in 630BC. Ninevah was located near the present day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It was on the Tigris River which at that time was lush and beautiful. This king had a huge library in which he had a few copies of the epic of Gilgamesh written in cuneiform.

The three main stories in the book are of Arthur, born in 1840 in London, Narin, the River Tigris in 2014, and Zaleekhah, London, in 2018. All of the stories have something to do with the epic of Gilgamesh which I now want to get hold of and learn more about. It takes place between 2900 and 2350 BC and was written down much later.

Arthur is born on the banks of the Thames with. He turns out to be a genius with an ability for languages but always aware of his lower class status. He works for the British Library translating the cuneiform tablets from Ninevah. He eventually goes to the River Tigris in both Turkey and Iraq.

Narin is born in the Iraq part of the river and is forced to Turkey with a mass killing by ISIS. She is part of the Yazidi religion, another fascinating thing I’ve never heard of and want to know more. It’s monotheistic but not part of the Abrahamic tradition. Who knew?

Zaleekhah is half middle eastern and half British born in Britain and is taken in by her very wealthy uncle after her parents are killed in a flash flood. She is a water scientist studying partly history and partly climate science.

So the theme is, obviously, water. The rivers, the studies, and questionably, the drop of water. The trick of this novel is the drop of water that first falls on the head of King Ashurbanipal. Yes, the water cycle. The rain falls and then evaporates and then falls again sometimes staying in sewer systems or bodies of water for awhile. But, in this book, the drop of water that falls on the ancient king is followed until the present day. The same drop freezes into snow and falls onto Arthur’s head after he is born next to The Thames. The same drop is carried to Iraq where it fills the water bottle of Narin 150 years later. It evaporates and goes back to London where Zaleekhah drinks it in 2018. Is this too far-fetched to abide? I’ve spent hours wondering if this is scientifically possible. Do drops cohere? Do however many molecules of water stay together like that and travel together? Based on my memory of the water cycle from elementary school, they do not. A molecule maybe. But a molecule is not as compelling an image as a drop. Did this spoil the book for me? Not really. Water is still a connector of people and places.

Two-Step Devil is completely different. The Prophet is an old man living alone in Lookout Mountain, Alabama. The town is near the border of Alabama and Georgia in the north where they border on Tennessee. His wife died and his son deserted him because he thought the Prophet was crazy. Is he crazy? He gets messages about the future war with the bees who come from space and he needs to get this information to the president. He has dreams and visions which he paints on the walls of his little cabin. There is a being living with him named Two-Step Devil.

The Prophet comes across a girl named Michael at a deserted gas station across from a deserted dump. She is with a man and a woman and is obviously in trouble. The man punches her, she has zip ties around her wrists. The woman gets her dressed in fancy clothes in the bathroom and gives her some pills. The Prophet figures out their schedule and one day he manages to knock out the woman and grab the girl and put her in his van. That sounds pretty criminal too. But he has only good intentions. He helps her to survive withdrawal from the drugs she’s been given. They do well together but eventually she must leave and live her life though first The Prophet extracts a promise from her that she will go to Washington D.C. to tell the president to look out for the bees.

This is where it gets interesting. Up until Michael leaves the book is written in 3rd person. The next section is a first person narration by Michael. She tells her search for the money she has stashed and her attempt to get on a Greyhound bus on time. Also, some interesting details about Chattanooga. This part of the book is called “Song of Songs” after the Old Testament book. That book is about 2 lovers speaking to each other. I don’t know how to interpret that for the book I am reviewing but it’s interesting, isn’t it? The next part of the book is confusing also. It’s called “Gospel” and it’s in the form of a play whose actors are the Prophet and Two-Step Devil. I love a book that begs to be read over and over again. That’s what this section does. I’m not sure of what the characters in this drama are saying to each other. And the next section is 2 versions of what happens to Michael after she gets on the Greyhound bus. A best case and a not so great case.

I’m going to go with Two-Step Devil. It is the more imaginative and outrageous novel. There are parts to reread; there are parts that are thrilling; it gives alternative lives for its characters; it’s a brilliant presentation of religion in people’s lives. There Are Rivers in the Sky was a very interesting and arresting read and taught me about people I didn’t previously know of. But Two-Step Devil grabbed me and wouldn’t let go."

Our second match-up pits I Cheerfully Refuse against The Safekeep, and Jan is our judge today. "

I'm determined to add all of my comments just a little too late.

Jan did a great job of capturing my feelings about =The Safekeep=. I couldn't make sense of the central relationship, but I enjoyed very much the idea of Eva coming back for what's hers. That was a great hook on which to hang a plot. And Yael, whatever her sexual or political identity, can definitely write. I was swept up by her prose. So I would have picked it to advance here.

Enger's book never really captured me, and I abandoned it early, as they were securing the boat in the cove on their first trip: I didn't get far. And I find myself ever more impatient with the MPDG and fridging (a term I learned from you commentators) these days than I am with inexplicable attractions to unpleasant people.

I will say, though, that I preferred the lack of the apocalypse in that book. If I liked the book as a whole better (and if I'd finished it!) I'd give you a long argument for why it isn't a clumsy omission, but a deliberate commission.

Before I go, though, there's something that's been tickling my brain when I think back on =The Safekeep= ... and it came to me the other day: it (the story) reminded me of =The Paying Guests=. Did anyone else see that connection? (I thought the Sarah Waters book was terrific, btw.)

I appreciated TARITS for being a well-written traditional novel with some pointless water gobbledigook. I loved TSD for just going for it. Formally inventive, not in a weird or experimental fiction sort of way, but it just felt like the structuing took a risk in a way that greatly added to the story.

I loved Two Step Devil so much when I read it. It’s been on my mind lately because I just read The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor. I recommend O’Connor’s novel as a companion read to Two Step Devil. I think Jaime Quattro must have read it to have written Two Step Devil the way she did.

Two Step Devil was pretty great. I liked "River" for its well-drawn characters, but it definitely felt like part of a trend in publishing (interconnected but disparate stories - HOW many of these have we read in the last 10 years??). I can honestly say, though, that there's nothing else like Two Step Devil.

Jan: 🫶🏻 *chefs kiss* love your review!

The thing I most appreciated about Two-Step Devil is that both main characters are misunderstood and looked down on in different ways by the world they live in, but the author takes them seriously and treats them with respect. And the creativity, as others have said - I don’t think I’ve ever read anything else like it!

Chrissy wrote: " There Are Rivers in the Sky was a very interesting and arresting read and taught me about people I didn’t previously know of. But Two-Step Devil grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.."

YES!

More people need to read Two-Step Devil and I recommend it all the time.

I generally enjoyed TARITS and could follow the stories there easier than I could in TSD (I’m glad I wasn’t the only one confused by that final section), but I think I would have gone the same way for this matchup. I loved Michael’s section - so painful, but engaging. And as others have mentioned, it’s just a highly unique book that pushes boundaries and challenges its readers. It made me uncomfortable, in a (mostly) good way. There are various layers to dig through there.

TARITS had an element that didn’t sit right with me, but I’ve used up my energy on the “ethical flags” for this tournament’s books this week with The Safekeep, so I’ll spare y’all those comments. (But if anyone can guess/also spotted it, you get a cookie! ;)

As far as the “same water drop connecting the three stories/characters/timelines” framework for the book… I didn’t dislike it, but I don’t know that it was necessary to explain it in so much detail to make them all fit. It was a bit overdone, maybe?

My guess is that the author either started with the idea and decided not to ditch what could have been the scaffolding to remove once the stories were in place, or, the pressures of the publishing industry and needing “a unique hook” created the emphasis on that water connection.

Overall, I think the stronger book is moving forward here. Thanks, Bryn!

Late to the party here and late to reading the books in this bracket. The only two I read so far were in the first match-up. LOVED 'Poor Deer' and 'Glorious Exploits' and sad they were matched up together, but YAY for 'Poor Deer'!

The final match-up of Round 1 is I Make Envy on Your Disco vs. Blue Ruin, and Aaron is our judge:

I often say that I like books about difficult people, but the truth is that I struggle with books about broken men. I find too often that authors dwell over too long on the thoughts of these men, dwelling on ruminations rather than propelling a story forward in any kind of meaningful way. Underlying my distaste for stories about problematic men is the deep ick I feel when I relate to an unlikeable man where the overlap is parts of myself I both don’t like and l have worked on. This kind of relatability can be forged into something powerful in the hands of a skilled writer, but all too often I feel like I’m being brought along into a long therapy session I’ve already been to without an actual therapist to moderate.

And here is the core distinction between I Make Envy on Your Disco and Blue Ruin. One is a heartfelt exploration of being adrift in life far from home, while the other is a frustrating dive into the psyche of a deeply unlikable character and his relationships with other damaged people. If you’ve read both novels and still do not know which is which at this point, you had a very different experience reading Blue Ruin. I’ll tip my hand here: I loathed Blue Ruin. It’s among my least favorite reads in the past several years.

Blue Ruin didn’t work for me at any level. I’ve heard the writing at a line level described as beautiful, but not only did it fall flat, I found some of it laughable. “I looked at the face that had launched a thousand of my twenty-somethings ships”? Come on. To say the pacing was plodding would be an understatement. Here, we have a story about a Jay, still recovering from COVID, who delivers food to a property in upstate New York during lockdown and is greeted by Alice, his former lover. This bit of happenstance is magnified when Jay reveals that they knew each other in England over twenty years ago. It’s not the most believable start to a story, but it could have been forgivable had it used that initial momentum. Instead, it immediately stops, reverses course and spends fully half the novel (!) recounting Jay’s past, his history as an artist, and his relationship with Alice.

This all could have been covered in a few pages, but not only does it keep going, it’s all through the lens of Jay’s brooding. Instead of describing scenes in his past with a little bit of commentary, the commentary itself takes center stage. Jay explains in detail how he was processing each part of his past as it happened. This might have worked, except that we’re stuck in the mind of an artistic bore. The reader is then forced to be told, rather than shown, events from a history that isn’t interesting. I can hardly say I loved the opening, but there was at least something interesting there, a thread I wanted to follow. Instead, I found myself stuck inside a masturbatory deep dive into a past I didn’t care about until we could be expelled back into the present. Gross! Yes, gross.

When we finally do make it to the present, surprise: everyone is still awful. The momentum comes back, if in fits and starts, and a gun is even introduced! However, my hope for some kind of action towards self-awareness, or maybe just violence as a denouement was quickly dispelled. There are some observations of art, class, race, gender, etc., but none of it was particularly interesting. This is the real issue, the cast can be unlikable, but they must make up for it by being interesting. In Blue Ruin, everyone is a two-dimensional trope of a person. Unreliable artistic addicts, rich patrons who don’t understand the art they are buying, paranoid art dealers. Ugh! No thank you.

Disco works because the characters are interesting. We follow Sam Singer, a New York art dealer, as he grows friendships while on a business trip to Berlin. Magda, who works behind the desk at Sam’s hotel, is a fan favorite (it’s me, I’m the fan). She’s prickly. She’s blunt. She’s funny and has a dog. Most importantly, she has a progression her in relationship with Sam. The characters are, if not complex, then at least reasonably rounded, meaning at a minimum each contains the capacity for both joy and sadness.

And both longing and sadness are core to Disco. One of the concepts the book delves into is Ostalgie, nostalgia for aspects of life in East Germany that it’s more than simple nostalgia, it’s also about fighting to keep a past connected to the present, especially when the past is complicated. So too is Sam searching to remain connected, if not to his present relationship with his long-time boyfriend, then at least to the history of it that has shaped him.

I think it’s important to note that Disco is Eric Schnall’s debut novel. While it would stand up regardless, it’s a marvel as a debut. Does Blue Ruin even get published if Kunzru hadn’t written it? Signs point to no.

So yes, my choice is Disco, by a wide margin, but I don’t want the takeaway solely to be that Blue Ruin was bad. Disco could have held its own and triumphed against stiffer competition and I hope it does.

I really loved Disco too - all of what Aaron said about characters and theme, but also the really strong sense of place. I haven’t been to Berlin yet, but I kind of feel like I have!

I loved I Make Envy on Your Disco and am so happy with your judgment, Aaron! I thought Blue Ruin was ok, but Disco was probably my favorite read from last year and I continue to think of it often.

Emily, I totally agree, for both books! Thanks for the blast of good sense imo re Blue Ruin. White Tears was magnificently strange, and Red Pill was deeply intriguing...but #3 in the series didn't work for me, either. Disco was so fresh and funny, and somehow, true.

I agree with all of you about this round. I just finished I Make Envy on You Disco a few days ago and I loved it. The Kunzru was ok but not as good as the previous 2 in the series.

I'll have to get my hands on that Disco book whenever I manage to whittle down my queue.

I read Disco a couple of months ago and it is one of my favorites this year. I'm a sucker for "finding your tribe" kind of books and Disco had such a cool tribe of characters!

Thank you for articulating what I did not enjoy about Blue Ruin. All the drug use was tedious.

I liked Blue Ruin, but I LOVED Disco.

I have been putting off reading this judgement, as I'm in the middle of reading 'Blue Ruin' but not getting much traction with it. (And I voted for it to be here!) I'm on around page 80 and finding I'm agreeing with Judge Aaron. I'm really not a fan of Covid books, art kid books, OR drug kid books. It's like this book wasn't even written by the same author as 'White Tears' or 'Red Pill'!!! wth, Where is this bonkers roller coaster ride of genius sentences I was expecting?? On a sentence level it is bland... It is simply a disappointment, though I will keep going past page 80...